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Accept Credit Cards on Your iPhone, with Square

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-09-12T09:49:28-07:00

Being able to accept credit cards is good for business. It's convenient for customers, and it's fast for the vendor. Unfortunately, for the small businessman, accepting credit cards has been an expensive hassle. Not anymore-- thanks to Square.

Square provides, for free, a credit card reader that fits into your iPhone's headphone jack. Use the Square iPhone app to enter the amount of the bill, swipe a card through the Square reader's slot, and you're on your way to getting paid. Start by going to Square and signing up for an account. All you need to provide is a US-based mailing address, a US-based bank account, and a Social Security Number. You can sign up as a business or as an individual, and even without the card reader, you can accept credit cards by manually entering the credit card's number. The card reader will arrive in a few days and at that point you'll be all set. There's nothing else to do.

The Fees
Square's fees are simple: no set-up fee, no monthly fee, no monthly minimum, no variable rates. Just 2.75% on every scanned credit card, and 3.5% + 15 cents for every manually-entered credit card. (For those new to this credit card stuff, a scanned card number is less of a fraud risk to Square than a manually-entered card number is, so they charge less for that.)

Why Square?
Square's fees are competitive with those from other "merchant services" companies, so price isn't really the reason to use them. Where Square really shines is in ease of set-up, ease of use (iPhone app), clear reports, and excellent customer service. It could not be easier to set up, the iPhone app is super-convenient, the reports tell you everything you need to know, and when you need help from Square it's easy to get, and fast.

Here are a few screenshots taken from my iPhone. This one shows some work that I'm going to charge for.

If I'm on-site, the customer gives me a credit card and I scan it. The customer then signs her name with her finger, right on the iPhone. It's wild. One more touch and the card number is sent to Square (so yes, you need to have internet access, either WiFi or through your iPhone's cellular data network). Approval is immediate (assuming it's a good card) and a receipt is emailed to the customer. The whole affair is fast and fun, even for the person paying.

Here's how it looks when you don't have a card to scan. Just type it in and Authorize.

Here's a stock photo from Square themselves showing the signature screen. Yes, they compute tips for you, if that's what you'd like.

Here's a screenshot showing how nice and clean the Square iPhone app is. If I tap the Sales History button I can see how I've used Square, right on the phone.

It's not blurry when you look at it on the iPhone.

The money gets to your bank account in about three business days. First it goes to Square's system, then it's sent to your bank, and then it's in your account. There are a couple of holds and delays along the way but it ends up in your bank account in about three days.

I Know What You're Thinking
"That's nice, but I have no need for that." Oh no? Wouldn't it be cool to be able to accept credit cards at a garage sale? Or at a bake sale? Or at some other kind of fund raiser? Of course it would. Wouldn't it be nice if your pool man or plumber or the neighborhood kids who cut your grass and wash your car accepted credit cards? Tell them about Square and they can. Yes, they'll need an iPhone (or an iPad, or-- ugh-- certain Android devices), but that's hardly a bad thing. They can read The Boyce Blog (or play Angry Birds) on their iPhones when they're not scanning credit cards.

As long-time readers of The Boyce Blog know, we only recommend things that we use ourselves. We switched to Square six months ago and we've been thrilled with it ever since. I highly recommend Square.

This, by the way, is my 300th blog post. How about that.

Written by +Christian Boyce

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Save Money on Your AOL Bill

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-09-04T17:38:14-07:00

(This one is for AOL users. If you are one, read on. If you aren't one, read on anyway. I'll bet you have at least one AOL-using friend that can put this information to use.)

Actually, I could have called this "Eliminate Your AOL Bill." Keep reading.

Once upon a time, AOL (America Online) was the Number One way for people to get online. AOL provided software, an email address, and a phone number with a modem at the other end that would answer your dial-up call and put you on the internet. That was a long time ago.

AOL charged for that. It makes sense that they did; if nothing else, all of those phone lines and modems cost AOL real money. So you paid, maybe $19.95 per month, maybe $14.95 per month, and if you have an AOL account that is more than a couple of years old, you probably are still paying. But you don't have to.

Turns out that AOL will give anyone a free email address. And, if you already have an AOL address, you should check to see whether you're paying for it or not. If all you want from AOL is an email address, follow this tutorial and quit paying them. It's really easy.

Step One: use Safari (or Firefox, or whatever) and go to www.aol.com. (You can do this on your computer or your iPhone or iPad. Even the PC people can do this, so tell a friend. Your friend will thank you.) If you're already checking your email on AOL, look for a tiny "AOL" link at top left. That'll do it.

Step Two: click where it says "SERVICES" The red arrow shows you where. You're not going to click and hold and slide down the menu that drops down. You're just going to click on "SERVICES" and let go.

Step Three: in this screen, click where it says "Account Updates." It's nice and bold, at the top left. Red arrow, man.

Step Four: you'll have to sign in (if you haven't already), and you'll have to supply the secret answer to your secret question. I can't help you with those things-- that's why they call them "secret." Once you've done that, you'll see this screen. Click where it says "Change My AOL Plan."

They'll ask you whether you need a dial-up connection or not. Hopefully, you know the answer to that. (If you're not sure, contact me and I will help you find out. Hint: if you're one of my customers, you do NOT need a dial-up connection. You have a high-speed connection already.)

Step Five: Now for the fun part. They'll tell you at the top what your current plan is. If it says anything other than "Current Plan: $0.00/month" you're about to save some money.

Here's what you might see:

Scroll down the page and you'll find the Free AOL plan. That's the one for you. Click the big orange "Get This Plan" button and that is that. You'll see something like this when you're done:

So... what are you missing by going with the free plan? Just a couple of things, which you probably don't need:

No "live" technical support
No dial-up access (but so what-- you have your own high-speed connection, yes?)
No McAfee security (also, so what-- the version AOL is "giving" you isn't compatible with Macs!)

In other words, you're not missing anything. So get rolling here and save yourself some money. You'll keep your email address, and your email will keep right on working, without interruption. You just won't be paying for it anymore. Even a few bucks a month add up.

If a few bucks a month don't matter to you feel free to click here, or use the PayPal button below. Heh.
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Favorite Steve Jobs Links

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-09-02T22:54:12-07:00

I thought I'd put a few of my favorite Steve Jobs links here, all in one place. Enjoy.

Playboy Interview, February 1985. Long, meaty interview with Steve Jobs, at the time head of Apple. Fantastic reading. Three months after this interview was published, Jobs was out of Apple, fired from the company he started.

MacWorld Expo 1997 Keynote Speech. Jobs is back with Apple, thanks to Apple's acquisition of NeXT. Gil Amelio (the Apple CEO who oversaw the acquisition) is out, and Apple is operating without an official CEO. In his first big public speech since his return, Jobs outlines his plans for bringing a reeling Apple back to health. He is particularly gracious in giving thanks to the outgoing Board members for working hard under difficult circumstances. Watch and listen as Jobs alludes to "the crazy ones" that Apple makes computers for (soon to be the theme of some very memorable ads). Great stuff throughout.

Stanford Commencement Address, 2005. Twenty-two minute video (counting the introduction by Stanford's President John Hennessy). Jobs' pancreatic cancer had been diagnosed the previous year, and the perspective it gave him is evident throughout the speech. Highly recommended.

Original iPhone introduction, MacWorld Expo 2007. "This is a day I've been looking forward to for two and a half years." Steve Jobs at his very best. Part 1 here. Part 2 here.

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Christian Boyce On the Radio

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-09-02T17:33:37-07:00

I'll be on the Digital Village radio program Saturday, September 3rd 2011 at 9 AM, talking with hosts Doran Barons and Ric Allan about Steve Jobs and his legacy. Should be an interesting program. Click here to listen live. If you miss the show, use this link to listen to a recording.

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Lion's Mail: How to Fix the Toolbar

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-08-31T12:22:42-07:00

Ah, Lion. It's almost as if someone is trying to make our Macs harder to use. Here's one example: the default setting for Lion's Mail app has the toolbar displaying icons only. Problem is, some of the icons are new, and we don't know what they do. Solution: set the toolbar to show the icons and their labels. So much better, and so easy to do.

Here's what the toolbar looks like in Lion's Mail, by default:

Yeah, I know you can figure out most of these, but it's not supposed to be a puzzle.

It would be better if the toolbar looked more like this:

So let's do it.

1. Select "Customize Toolbar..." from the View menu.
2. At bottom left corner, change "Show Icon Only" to "Show Icon and Text."
3. Click "Done" (bottom right).

That's it! So much better. And so easy to do.

You can always go back to Customize Toolbar... and make other changes, including adding and deleting buttons such as "Add To Address Book" and "Smaller Bigger." And, if you get really good at things and you want that quarter-inch of vertical screen space back, you can change back to "icon only" or even to "text only." Nice to know you have choices.

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NFL Prime Time Calendar for 2011, in iCal Format

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-08-28T22:40:27-07:00

Here is an iCal calendar showing the times and teams for every prime-time NFL game for the 2011 season. The calendar is provided by Scott Crevier of South End Zone and if you're a football fan I strongly urge you to visit his site.

In years past, I've modified Scott's full NFL schedule using AppleScript, producing a calendar of just the prime-time games, but Scott agreed to build the prime-time calendar himself this year. Scott's calendar has the advantage of being kept up to date as the season moves along.

If you click the link here, iCal will launch and ask you whether you want to subscribe to the calendar.

The answer is "Yes" so click Subscribe (don't change the Calendar URL-- that has to stay as shown). In the next box, you may wish to rename the calendar, change its color, and turn off the Alerts and Attachments and Reminders. You may also want to change the update frequency to every day rather than every week. See below.

The NFL season is right around the corner. Subscribe to this calendar and you'll know who's playing on Monday Night Football (and Sunday Night Football, and Thursday Night Football), and when.

(Those who are interested can read how I created the prime-time calendar myself in years past, starting with South End Zone's full NFL schedule and using AppleScript to systematically remove every game that started before 4 PM Pacific time. Writing the AppleScript was a fun exercise but this year's calendar from South End Zone is better due to the updating.)

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Steve Jobs Resigns as CEO of Apple: My Thoughts

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-08-24T21:43:42-07:00

This is Steve Jobs introducing the iPhone at MacWorld Expo in January 2007.

This is Steve Jobs introducing the iPad three years later.

I don't know of another big-time CEO who so obviously loves his products. Look at his face. He can hardly contain himself. I can't decide which picture I like more. So here they are, both of them.

***
As you surely know, Steve Jobs resigned his position as CEO of Apple today via this letter to the Apple Board of Directors "and the Apple Community" (which I thought a nice touch). I've received numerous comments via email, text, phone, and in person, all saying "It's a sad day." And I agree. But, as I've written before, it's hardly the end of Apple. It's also hardly the end of Steve Jobs' involvement at Apple-- he's still on the Board of Directors, and now he's Chairman of the Board, and he's still an Apple employee. Yes, it's a step back, but no, he's not leaving Apple. Not just yet.

(Apple's going to be fine. Tim Cook, whom Steve Jobs personally picked to be CEO, is going to take the job. Cook isn't Steve Jobs, but he's been Chief Operating Officer at Apple since 1998, and he wouldn't have lasted that long if he didn't understand what's important to the company and what makes Apple special. I've read that Apple has codified "the Apple way," going so far as to create a series of courses that formally explain and teach the company's core beliefs. Those beliefs may have started in Steve Jobs' mind, but they aren't going to end there. Obviously, Steve Jobs is not replaceable in the sense that we're all different, and Jobs is more different than most. But the company is in good hands with Tim Cook.)

So what's so sad about today's news? Plenty: An unmatched leader is unable to continue doing the work he loves. That's sad. The public has probably seen its last Steve Jobs keynote speech/product introduction. That's sad too. Reading between the lines it's easy to assume that Jobs' health is deteriorating, and of course on a human level that's even sadder still.

Steve Jobs tried to change the world-- and he did it. He had a vision of how ordinary people could use computers and technology to make their lives better, and now, after all these years, the world understand what Jobs meant. The Mac, the iPod, the iTunes Music Store, the iPhone, the iPad-- all game-changers, instantly copied, with the ideas being so good that even the copies were better than what was there before.

Steve Jobs changed computers, music, phones, and with the iPad, "everything." He changed the world, and now it appears he might not be around to enjoy it very long. That, to me, is saddest of all.

UPDATE: According to Ars Technica, Tim Cook sent a letter this morning to all Apple employees, saying "I want you to be confident that Apple is not going to change." Read the full text of Tim Cook's letter at Ars Technica.

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How to Print Faster, and Save Ink

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-08-22T22:25:28-07:00

Inkjet printers, as a group, have a couple of features in common:
1. Replacing the ink costs more than the printer did, and
2. Printing takes a long, looooong time.

I can't make the cost of ink go down but I can show you how to make your inkjet use less ink, and print faster (a LOT faster-- in my tests, doing it "my way" cut printing time by a factor of SIX!). The trade-off is print quality, but there are plenty of times when all you want to do is print out an email, or someone's address card, or a recipe for barbequed turkey, and quality is not an issue. There's a time and a place for everything. Anyhow, here's how you do it.

By the way, this will work with Mac OS X 10.4, 10.5, 10.6, and 10.7.

First, find something to print and bring up the Print... dialog box. If it looks like this, click the triangle in the blue box (circled here) and expand the box.

If you're using Lion, it's a little different. In Lion, you "Show Details."

Either way, you end up with a bigger Print box. Now look for a pop-up menu in the Print box. I've circled one here, but programs can modify the Print box in various ways so your Print box pop-up menu may look different. However, the choices will be similar.

Click that menu and you'll see something like this. Choose "Paper Type/Quality" or whatever you can find that looks the most like that.

In the box that appears next, click on the Quality pop-up (shown below) and choose the fastest, least-ink-using choice as shown here.

If you hover over the various options here you'll see a yellow flag telling you what you should expect. Here's what you get when you choose "Fast draft" on an HP printer:

Sounds good to me. Now print!

In my testing, by using the "Fast draft" option I was able to print an entire six-page document in 55 seconds. Using the typical settings (that is, if I just went to Print but didn't change anything) it took 63 seconds for the first page alone! I stopped the test at that point because I didn't want to waste the ink.

If it sounds like a lot of work... well, it's not. It's a medium amount of work. But, if you do it once, and you like the results, and you don't want to do it again, you can save the settings as a so-called "Preset." What you do is make all of your choices, then click the Presets menu as shown below.

Slide down to "Save As..." and name your "Fast draft" settings something like... oh, I don't know, maybe something like "Fast Draft." This saves all of the choices that you made by hand, so next time you want to print something, you either print it "Standard" (which is to say, the usual way), or you choose "Fast Draft" from the Presets menu. You can make and save as many Presets as you like-- in this picture, you can see I have a few already.

To the best of my knowledge, only one person in the entire world has ever saved a Preset in the Print dialog box, so how about you try it and we'll be up to two. It really is a very cool feature, whether your goal is to go cheap and fast, or to go high-quality on glossy photo paper. It's a real time-saver to be able to set a whole bunch of options by simply choosing your custom preset and it costs nothing to try.

Note: the Fast Draft setting is going to get your page out lickety-split but it's not the right choice for photos or a college term paper (Spencer) or anything else where looks matter. Still, when speed is what you want, and you don't want to use up all your ink, the Fast Draft setting is exactly what you need.

One More Thing: Laser printers probably won't have a "Fast Draft" setting but they sometimes have a "fast" or "light" option, so look around in the Print box and see what your options are. You won't find the same settings I've shown here but you'll still be able to print quickly and with less toner than you would normally.

The money you'll save on ink and toner can go toward properly celebrating National Sponge Cake Day. Hurry up, it's upon us.

Written by +Christian Boyce
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HP Doesn't Get It

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-08-18T22:25:34-07:00

Hewlett-Packard appears to be through as a PC maker. Their TouchPad (HP's version of the iPad), introduced only six weeks ago, was recently discounted-- and now it's discontinued. Today, at HP's quarterly earnings conference call, HP said that it was "exploring options" for getting out of the PC business altogether. Wow.

There's a lot of other HP news, though none of it as shocking as HP's ability to face the fact that an HP logo on a not-as-good-as-the-iPad tablet isn't nearly good enough. The thing that really stands out, though, is what HP's CEO and CFO say is the driving force for the company: namely, creating and increasing "shareholder value."

You never hear Apple talking about "shareholder value" in its conference calls. All Apple talks about is making great products-- and about record sales. I don't think it's a coincidence.

If you make it plain that your Number One priority is "increasing shareholder value" you also make it plain that "making great stuff" can't be higher than priority Number Two. To my mind, HP has it backward. Make great stuff first. "Shareholder value" will come along for the ride.

In case anyone from HP is reading... imagine the man on the street talking about your products even when the products haven't been announced. Imagine world-wide news coverage of your every product introduction. Imagine repeat customers desiring your products so strongly that they camp on the sidewalks outside your stores for the privilege of exchanging their money for your goods. If you're HP, you can only imagine. But if you're Apple, you know what it's like first-hand.

Maybe one day HP will realize that they got where they are (actually, where they used to be) by making great stuff, and maybe one day they'll focus on that instead of on shareholder value. I hope they do. But I wouldn't bet on it.

Here are some excerpts from HP's conference call (with emphasis added by me). You can read a transcript of the entire event here. You can search the transcript for the word "shareholder" and find it many times, including in the snippets below:

Léo Apotheker, HP's CEO: "Today is all about rising shareholder values and addressing the challenges we face in our business."

Mr. Apotheker: "... continuing to execute our current device approach in this market space [tablets] is no longer in the best interest of HP and HP's shareholders. Therefore, we have made the difficult but necessary decision to shut down the webOS hardware provisions within Q4 2011."

Mr. Apotheker: "... most importantly, we very strongly believe the transaction [purchasing Autonomy] will create significant value for our shareholders."

Mr. Apotheker: "...as CEO, I believe in transparency about what we are facing and be clear on the decisive things we are doing now about it. To conclude, I'm taking ownership for these decisions and investments with a focus on driving actions that deliver value for shareholders as we shape the new HP."

Catherine Lesjak, HP's CFO: "We are repositioning our portfolio, discontinuing or exploring options for lower margin businesses and investing in higher margin areas, including Services and Software. This effort will require patience, but the clear objective is to drive long-term shareholder value."

Mr. Apotheker: "I said it before, this is about a transformation to position HP for a new future and about driving long-term shareholder value... As CEO, I'm steadfast in my commitment to take action to do the right things to drive value for our shareholders."

Yikes.

Here's something a little different: the transcript from Apple's July 19th, 2011 quarterly earnings conference call. You can search it for the word "shareholder" but it's not mentioned even once. They do mention"products" six times, and "customer" eleven. Could be they're on to something. Maybe.

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Lion Update 10.7.1: Big Improvement

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-08-17T00:11:23-07:00

Today Apple released its first update to Mac OS X Lion: 10.7.1. You can read a little about it on Apple's site. If you're on Lion already, this update is a must. Here, 10.7.1 runs in glorious silence, quite a difference from my Mac's "roaring" (get it? Lion? Roaring?) fans under the initial 10.7.0. That's a big plus.

It's likely that Apple was working on this update even before Lion's initial availability, which means that much of 10.7.1's improvements is stuff that Apple already knew about. And that means that bugs that were found after Lion's release could still be present-- but I'd expect a lot of them to be fixed in 10.7.2.

If you're on 10.7, Step One is be absolutely positive that you have a current backup. You can go to Time Machine's menu and tell it to "Back Up Now" (that's what I did). Step Two is get 10.7.1 via Software Update under the Apple menu. Step Three is restart, which the Installer will insist upon. You might get some disk activity and fan noise immediately after the restart, but it ought to go away in time. You can restart again after that and from then on it ought to be smooth sailing.

You can probably tell that I am not keen on Lion. I prefer Snow Leopard for several reasons, some of which I will write about someday soon. But, if you're already on Lion, you'll be happier after installing the 10.7.1 update. Just be sure you have that backup, just in case.

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How to Bring Back "Search For" in Lion's Finder Sidebar

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-08-15T22:58:38-07:00

You have questions, we have answers. It's a match made in Heaven. Today's question:

"What happened to "Search For" in the Finder sidebar? I liked being able to use this occasionally and don't understand why it was dropped. Is there any way to get it back? Thanks. Sincerely, Anonymous."

What a great question, with a double-duty answer. With one blog post we can solve a problem for Lion users while simultaneously introducing Snow Leopard users to something they might not know about. I can't wait.

Here's a refresher, for those of you wondering what Anonymous is talking about. The Finder in Snow Leopard has something in its Sidebar that Lion doesn't have, and I've bordered it here in red.

By default, without you doing anything, Snow Leopard has this nifty "Search For" section, and when you click one of the items in that section the Finder shows all of the files that match. Here, I clicked "All Images" and Snow Leopard's Finder is showing 9,997 image files, from all over my hard disk.

You will also notice the "Today," "Yesterday," and "Past Week" items. Click them to find all of the files that have changed for the given timeframe. If you've ever forgotten what you named a document, but you know you worked on it yesterday, clicking on "Yesterday" in the Search For section will help you find it.

You can see that this "Search For" stuff could be handy. But Lion doesn't have it. Here's a look at the Sidebar in Lion's Finder-- no "Search For" to be found.

It's just not there. What a drag.

The good news is you can put it back with just a little work on your part. The really good news is that you can do even better than the standard Search For section (and that goes for you non-Lion users-- what you'll learn here will work for you in Snow Leopard and "regular" Leopard too).

Here's how you do it.

First, click on the Desktop, or the Finder icon in the Dock, or on a Finder window-- the point being that Step One is to be sure the Finder is the active program. Not sure? Look up by the Apple menu. If the next thing to the right says "Finder" you're ready to go. If not, click the Desktop (or the Finder icon in the Dock, or on a Finder window) and make it so.

Next, go to the File menu and choose Find. You're going to find something.

In this case, we're going to find every image on the hard disk-- that is, we want "Kind" to be "Image." Here's what the top of the Find box looks like. (Note the Save button. We're going to save our Find criteria when we're done.)

Click where it says "Any" and change it to Image. You will get another little menu next to that menu, where you could, if you wanted to, choose to only find JPEG or PNG or whatever. Leave it set to "All." Then click the Save button.

What you're doing here is saving the Find requests. Give it a good name and be sure the Add to Sidebar box is checked. Don't worry about where to save your search-- Apple takes care of that part for you. See the picture below.

Now have a look at your Finder's Sidebar. Your saved search will be there. It won't have a red arrow pointing to it like mine does here but it will be there.

Nice going. Now try another one! Go to File, come down to Find, and let's make one that says "Last modified date is yesterday." Here's how it looks:

Save that one with a good name... then do one more for "Last modified date is today" and you're well on your way to recreating the complete "Search For" section that Apple left out of Lion.

Here's how Lion's Finder Sidebar looks on my Mac after adding the three saved searches we did here (and I have clicked on the All Images search so you can see what it does).

You can really go to town with this technique, searching and saving and displaying your saved searches in the Sidebar as much as you want to.

Here's the kicker: you can do all of the above in Snow Leopard (and Leopard) too! Of course, you don't have to do it, because Apple's put All Images, and Today, and Yesterday in the Sidebar already-- but you can do so many other things using this technique! Search for every document that has the word "Barbeque" in it! Find every image that was modified within the last 30 days! Find every PDF whose size is greater than 5 megabytes! The sky's the limit. Do your Find, click the Save button, give it a good name-- and from then on, any time you click the saved search in the Sidebar, it's as if you manually did a Find the hard way.

If you're wondering whether these saved searches are "live", the answer is YES. You're saving the search criteria, not the search results. Every time you click a saved search in the Sidebar it does the search all over again. It's always fresh.

Here are a couple of bonus nifty things that you should know about.

Technically, what you're doing here is making "Smart Folders." That's what Apple calls them.
You will see similar "Smart" items in iPhoto ("Smart Albums") and in iTunes ("Smart Playlists").
You can drag your Smart Folders upward in the Sidebar but only if you click on the little gear icon (not on the name).
You can control-click a Smart Folder and "Show Search Criteria" if you want to make adjustments, or even just to remember what your Smart Folder does.
You can Command-drag a Smart Folder out of the Sidebar if you want to get rid of it. However, this does not really delete the Smart Folder. It just gets it out of the Sidebar.

Gee that was fun. Thanks for the question, Anonymous!

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Clear Out Bad Addresses in Apple's Mail

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-08-11T20:50:55-07:00

Apple's Mail program is really smart about guessing who you are sending an email to. Type the first few letters of a person's name (or the first few letters of his email address) and Mail fills in the rest. All you have to do is accept Mail's suggestion, by pressing either Tab or Return on your keyboard.

(Bonus Hint: alternatively, you can type the first few letters of a person's last name. Mail will still look it up.)

This works very well when Mail has only one suggestion. It works just slightly less well when there are several matches-- for example, let's say you're going to email your friend Jack. You type "j" and then you type "a" and Mail shows you a list with Jack, Jason, Janet, Janice, Jamal, Jackson, James, etc. That's easy enough to deal with-- just type a little more, and the list narrows down to the one you want.

Where it really works very poorly is when someone you've written to changes his email address. Mail remembers the addresses of people you've emailed before, so even though you've changed the person's name in the Address Book, Mail keeps suggesting the old address. That can be a problem.

For example, let's say you have a friend, Joe Smith, with an email address as shown here:

Send him even one email at that address and Mail will very helpfully suggest "joe@joesmith.com" every time you begin addressing an email with "joe."

Now let's say Joe changes his email address to something a little different (or, let's say you had it wrong all along-- no wonder he didn't write back!). Let's say his new address is this one:

You've changed it in the Address Book, but look what happens when you start addressing an email to Joe. Mail suggests both the current email address and the old one, like so:

Obviously, it would be nice if Mail would forget about Joe's old email address. Here's how you make that happen.

Choose "Previous Recipients" from Mail's Window menu as shown here:

You'll get a little window, where you can type in what you're looking for to narrow it down. Here's what it looked like after I searched for joe smith:

Click the address you want Mail to forget about, then click "Remove From List," and that is that. Next time you address an email to Joe, Mail will suggest just the new address, as shown below.

Pretty cool.

This works the same way in Mail whether you're using Lion (10.7), Snow Leopard (10.6), Leopard (10.5), or even Tiger (10.4). Have a look in your Mail program's Previous Recipients window. I'll bet you'll find a bunch of addresses that can be cleared out (including some that were typos, which Mail remembers anyway).

In case you wondered: Mail looks for email addresses in both the Address Book and in the Previous Recipients list. It does not look at the addresses of people who have sent emails to you unless they are already in your Address Book or Mail's Previous Recipients.

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Good Stuff in Mac OS X Lion

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-08-09T18:18:29-07:00

Even though Mac OS X Lion has kept a lot of us busy looking for work-arounds and otherwise solving problems, it also has some nice touches which bear pointing out. Here are a few that I especially like.

1. Finder: New Folder with Selection. Select some files, then choose File/New Folder with Selection (n Items) and it does what it says it says it will do. (The "n" is the number of items selected.)

BETTER: control-click on one of the selected items and choose New Folder with Selection (n Items). There it is, right at the top.

Either way, you get a folder called "New Folder With Items" and it is ready for you to rename (no need to click it, just type the new name).

You've probably done something like this in iTunes (New Playlist from Selection). Now you can do it in the Finder.

iCal: double-click an event to edit it. Doesn't sound like such a big deal, but in 10.6.8 you double-click the event, then you click the Edit button. Lion's iCal eliminates the extra step. Thank you, Lion! You don't need a picture for this, just try it.

Mail: Favorites Bar. Drag your favorite mailboxes ("folders" to you and me) to the Favorites Bar for quick access, then hide the mailbox list so you have more room for mail. Go from this three-column view....
to this two-column view, leaving more room for the stuff you really need (that is, the mail that you are reading).
The important parts are highlighted in red (the Favorites Bar) and yellow (the Show/Hide button, which shows and hides the third pane of the Mail window).

If the Favorites Bar is not showing in Mail, choose "Show Favorites Bar" from the View menu. Note: you can file a message by dragging it onto an item in the Favorites Bar. Very nice.

I hope to find more stuff I like in Lion. If and when I do, I will let you know.

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How to Fix Lion's Finder Preferences

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-08-05T21:23:32-07:00

My first look at Lion's Finder was a mix of "that looks familiar" and "holy cow, what happened here?". Some of Lion's Finder looked like Snow Leopard's, but some of it didn't. Turns out that some of the stuff that didn't is the result of some questionable default choices (by Apple), and since it's easy to change things, I did. Here's how.

First, I didn't like the way Apple made Finder windows look. It felt like something was missing. Have a look.

In fact, something was missing: the slider to change the size of the icons, and the information about how much room was left on the disk-- along with the rest of the bottom of the window frame. One quick trip to the View menu and I'd turned on the Status Bar, leaving me with windows looking like this:

That's better. Now I can use the slider at bottom right to make the icons larger, and now I can see how much room is on the disk (and the number of items in the window).

After using the slider, the thumbnails are large enough to be useful.

Note: of course you could change the size of the icons by going to View/Show View Options (or, Command-J, thanks for reminding me Dave), but that's a bit of extra work. Just show the Status Bar and be done with it-- you'll have the slider right there all the time, for all Finder windows. One change and you're done.

Bonus: with the Status Bar showing you have something else to click on when you want to move the window.

I say turn the Status Bar on and leave it on. I also say turn on the Path Bar (in the Finder's View menu) and leave it on too-- that way, you'll know "the path" to the window you're looking at. For example, with the Path Bar on, I can see that the folder I'm looking at ("texas flowers") is in the Pictures folder, on the disk called "cboyce." I find that incredibly handy. You can double-click any item in the Path Bar and you'll jump straight there. That's even more incredibly handy.

The next thing that Apple turns off by default in the Lion Finder is our old friend the scroll bar. You can get the scroll bar back-- go to Apple/System Preferences.../General and look for "Show scroll bars:" and then click "Always."

(The scroll bars in Lion are a little thin for my taste, and there aren't any arrows to click on at the ends of the scroll bars-- something I really hope Apple changes its mind on soon. For now, no scroll arrows, none at all. Ugh.)

While you're in there, try changing the size of icons in the Finder's "Sidebar." Here's what it looks like with the Sidebar icon size set to "Large." (No, you can't change the color-- it's going to be shades of gray for the Sidebar in Lion, not that I see that as an advantage.)

Personally, I like my Sidebar icons "Medium."

You might want to come back and change your settings here someday down the road so remember where they are (and I agree that it's weird that some of the Finder's preferences are handled by selecting "Preferences..." from the Finder menu, while others are handled by going to System Preferences/General).

By the way, there's no little "lozenge" at the top right of Finder windows to toggle the toolbar and sidebar on and off. Instead, you have to go to the View menu and "Hide Toolbar" or "Show Toolbar." Why hiding the Toolbar also hides the Sidebar, I don't know. And there is no preference for putting the lozenge back on. I would just leave the Toolbar (and Sidebar) showing all the time. At least you know how to hide it if you want to.

But wait-- there's more!
What's wrong with this picture?

What's wrong is they forgot to show my hard drive on the desktop (or, rather, Apple's default setting is to NOT show hard disks on the Desktop). That's fixable: choose Preferences from the Finder menu and check the box for "Hard disks." Here's a picture of how it looks right out of the box-- I ended up checking all of the first four boxes. Why not. I can turn them off later I suppose.

And that's about it. I have my scroll bars back, I have my icon-resize slider back, I have my hard disk back. I miss seeing color in the Finder's Sidebar but I'll have to live with that for now. Truth is, I think Lion's Finder is a little bit lost, to make a bad joke. The way I see it, Apple "fixed something that wasn't broken." For now, I'm managing, but I'm hoping for some minor changes in a future Software Update.

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Grab Bag: Your Lion Questions, My Lion Answers

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-07-30T22:46:02-07:00

A lot of people come to the Boyce Blog via Google, and I get a report of what exactly they were looking for. Lately, I've had a lot of visits from Google searches for "Lion won't work with Microsoft Word", but that's hardly the only one. I thought I'd wade through the last few days of reports and give the people what they're looking for. If I don't answer YOUR question send me an email. The ones I'm answering here are the ones that have been "Googled" multiple times. Funny they seem to all be about Lion.

Google search: "How to run Palm desktop on OS Lion"
Boyce Blog answer: You don't. Very sorry. Palm Desktop is a PowerPC application, and like every other PowerPC application, will not run under Mac OS Lion. The most recent system that can run PowerPC applications is Mac OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard). There is no way around it: Palm Desktop will NOT run if your Mac is on Lion. Don't expect Palm to put out a new version-- they won't.

If you are using Palm Desktop and contemplating a move to Lion, export your Palm Desktop data before you install Lion. Export your Contacts as vCards, then import into Apple's Address Book. Export your Calendar as vCal, then import into iCal. If you have already made your move to Lion contact me privately and we can talk about your next step.

Google search: "Lion won't open Microsoft Word" (very popular search)
Boyce Blog answer: It will if you are using Office 2008 or Office 2011. Microsoft says that they will support both versions with priority being given to the 2011 version. You will not be able to use any part of Office 2004, or, Office X because they are PowerPC applications, and as you now now, PowerPC applications will not run in Mac OS Lion. If you are already on Lion, get Office 2011. Here's a link to Microsoft Office 2011 on Amazon, where you will save at least $20 over the suggested retail price.

UPDATE: you can download Microsoft Office 2011 (Home and Student Family Pack-- 3 Installs, or Home and Business-- 2 installs) from the Amazon Mac App Store via this link. Sorry, they don't have the single-installation versions available for download but if you need it now, you need it now.

Google search: "Can't open FileMaker with Lion"
Boyce Blog answer: Once again, probably a case of a PowerPC application. FileMaker 10 and 11 will work, but only version 11 will be upgraded to be fully compatible. At this writing, 11.0v3 is the latest version and it has a couple of small issues. A free upgrade from any version of FileMaker 11 to 11.0v4 will come in August, according to FileMaker. If you have FileMaker 9 or 10, upgrade to 11 via this link. If you have 8.5 or older (or no FileMaker at all) you will have to buy the full version. Here's the link for that. You'll save $20-$30 off FileMaker's price.

Note: FileMaker documents have not changed formats since version 7. So, your old FileMaker documents (databases) will open up just fine with FileMaker 11. It's the older program that is the problem. Your data is just fine.

Google search: "Are there any programs that will not work on Lion"
Boyce Blog answer: Maybe one or two... Actually, many. One more time: PowerPC applications will not run in Lion, period. They won't even start up. Other apps will start, but not quite work right. There's a pretty good list of what does and does not work at www.roaringapps.com.

You can find out rather quickly which of your applications are guaranteed to NOT work by following these steps:

1. Apple Menu/About This Mac
2. Click "More Info..." and wait for System Profiler to launch
3. Scroll down to "Applications" and click on it
4. Make the window wider, then click on "Kind" to sort by Kind. Anything that says "PowerPC" in the Kind column will not work. (Anything that says "Classic" in the Kind column won't work either-- they didn't work in 10.6 or 10.5 either)

Here's a picture, with the important stuff in yellow. "Intel" is OK. PowerPC is not OK. Do this before you install Lion please.

Google search: "big slowdown after installing lion"
Boyce Blog answer: There's a BIG slowdown after installing Lion, but it's temporary. The slowdown is caused by Lion's Spotlight feature as it has to re-index your entire hard drive. This can take some hours (mine took overnight) and your Mac's fans will run full-blast during this process as it is very CPU-intensive (and therefore very heat-inducing). Just let it happen. It's normal, it's expected, and it's temporary. (When you're done, take advantage of Spotlight's great searching powers-- top right corner of the screen.)

That takes care of our top five searches from the past couple of days. Remember, if you have a question and you can't find an answer, send me an email and I'll see what I can do. Do a little Google-ing first though. Who knows, the answer might turn out to be another page of this site!

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Best Safari 5 Extensions

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-07-27T22:06:07-07:00

Safari 5 introduced a new feature to Apple's web browser, namely Extensions. Extensions allow programmers to "extend" Safari's abilities beyond what comes standard. Here's a link to Apple's official Safari Extensions Gallery page, with many many many Extensions to read about and download. Four extensions that I've found handy are AdBlock, ClickToFlash, AutoPagerize, and Page One.

AdBlock does what you'd expect: it blocks ads. Check out these before-and-after shots. First the regular page, then the same page with AdBlock installed and active.

Much better. Go get it. Here's the link. Note: it's donation-ware. Try it for free, then donate whatever you think is right.

ClickToFlash prevents Flash animations from loading until (or unless) you click on them. Fantastic. You get a nice, peaceful web-browsing experience but you can still click the Flash videos that you want to see-- which will turn out to be "not very many." Here's a before-and-after (the circled ad rotates through seven different deals on the FoodSaver-- very distracting):

With ClickToFlash installed and active, the same page looks like this:

You can still see the space where the ad would be, and if you click it once it will show you the ad and all of its seven-image animation. AdBlocker would have hidden the ad completely, and that's not so bad either. You can use both AdBlock and ClickToFlash simultaneously and that is what I do. Use this link to get ClickToFlash. It's free.

AutoPagerize (donation-ware) and Page One (free) both attempt to make multi-page web articles (the ones that make you click to go to page 2, and then 3, and then 4, etc.) easier to read by putting all of the pieces together, all on one page. Both are terrific though AutoPagerize works on more sites, while Page One does it a little more neatly. Either way, you won't see much of this sort of thing anymore:

BONUS: you can often use Safari's built-in Reader to turn a multi-page story into a single-page one that is cleaner and nicer to read. You don't need an extension-- it's part of Safari. All you do is click the "Reader" button (circled in red here) in Safari's address bar (not that it is always there-- it only shows up when Safari thinks it knows what the main story on a page is). One click takes you from this (a four-page story):

to this:

It's hard to see, but in the top right corner it says "Page 1 of 4." What that means is you get the whole story in one scrolling window, with no ads and no other distractions. Pretty nice.

UPDATE: I put in the "after" picture so you can see how AdBlock works. Oopsy.

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Apple 10.6.8 Revised Update

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-07-25T16:12:48-07:00

Apple put out a "supplemental" 10.6.8 update today (July 25th, 2011). Among other important fixes, it restores network printing functionality that broke with the original 10.6.8. Apple puts it this way: "resolves issues with certain network printers that pause print jobs immediately and fail to complete."

Sounds good to me.

Go to Software Update under your Apple menu and get this fix.

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Breakfast with the Lion

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-07-23T09:19:28-07:00

I installed Mac OS X Lion onto my MacBook last night. Once installed, Spotlight began indexing my hard drive, and that's a pretty intensive process that really slows everything down (except for the fans inside the MacBook, which were going full-speed). Considering the "About 10 hours remaining" in the following dialog box...

...I thought it would be better to leave it alone, have dessert, go to bed, and try it again in the morning. With breakfast. Which is what I did. Here's how it went.

Let's Get Started
The first thing I noticed about Lion is how clumsy I am with it, especially with the scroll bars and window resizing. This is going to take some getting used to. I will probably have something to say about the new Finder, and it will probably not be totally positive, because my first impression with Lion's Finder is it's not as good as Snow Leopard's Finder. Quite a disappointment.

Main Course
The Apple apps all seem to work just fine, as you would expect. Mail upgraded my old Mail and it's better than the old mail. iChat works. Safari works. Address Book works but I like the old one better. Spotlight works but needs configuring (somebody, remind me to write about that). Pages and Numbers '09 work (but man is it weird to see Pages say "saving" when I quit without saving! That's Lion for you.)

Third-party apps, including Microsoft Word 2011, Microsoft Excel 2011, and Microsoft PowerPoint 2011, seem to work fine. I launched them all, made a new document with them all, and printed from them all. Nothing fancy, and of course I can't test every feature in every program so there may be something that does not work. But, at least for the basics, Office 2011 seems to work.

Office 2008 (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) open and print. AutoUpdate DOES work (choose "Check for Updates" from the Help menu of any of those three apps). Microsoft's AutoUpdate used to be PowerPC code, and it is probably hanging around in your Applications folder, a mistake by Microsoft's installer-- it looks like this, and it won't work in Lion:
(when you see it in Lion it will have a circle and a slash through it).

The version of AutoUpdate that works looks like this:
and it lives in a totally different place (see below).

You don't need to know where it lives, but you do need to know that it works. So, basically, if you have Office 2008 installed already, you're probably good to go. If you're only up to Office 2004 (which definitely does not work), you should probably buy Office 2011 (amazon link). Note: contrary to what I thought I knew a few days ago, Office 2008 can be installed under Lion. I tested that first-hand here. I had my doubts about the installer but I was able to install Office 2008 on my Lionized MacBook without any trouble.

Outlook 2011 works (part of Office 2011 if you pay for the Business version). Entourage 2008, which you really ought to ditch anyway (Microsoft did-- that's why they ship Office 2011 with Outlook instead), doesn't work very well for me. In fact, it won't do anything other than launch and crash. Your mileage may vary but if I'm having trouble, who's to say you won't too?

FileMaker Pro 11 seems to work, more or less. It isn't as fast as it was in Snow Leopard but that may be due to increased RAM requirements. Look at these screenshots of FileMaker Pro 11's opening screen-- the first, under Snow Leopard, the second, under Lion. Seems to be having some problems.

Wow.

Other issues in FileMaker include an inability to export files in Excel's "xls" format (requires Rosetta, which is not available in Lion). This is not such a big deal because you can export to the "xlsx" format (the newer one) without Rosetta. However, if you have a FileMaker database with scripts that call on the xls export step you are going to have some work to do changing things over.

If you use Evernote, which I do, you will be sorry to hear that as of this writing Evernote's Safari Web Clipping button does not work. They know about it, and they're fixing it.

Fujitsu's ScanSnap scanner works, hallelujah. This is the greatest time-saver and desk-cleaner-upper ever... scans both sides of a sheet of paper in seconds, one-button operation, and if you couple it with Evernote you can search for items by their content! No more worrying about naming things perfectly or filing them perfectly. Very handy, and I'm thrilled that this works fine in Lion.

I Think I Will Have a Second Cup, Thank You
Lion is more or less working here. Apple will probably have an update of their own soon-- my advice would be to wait for that first Apple update, at the very least, before installing. Most likely Apple already had a list of things they wanted to fix but they couldn't wait forever to get Lion out the door. Let them get that first update out before you make your move.

UPDATE: Here is Microsoft's official statement about Office 2008 and 2011 and Lion. According to them, everything more or less works, and updates are on the way-- for Office 2011 first, then for Office 2008. (I like how they say that such and such action "may" result in a crash. I think I would bet on it.)

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A Brief Lion Update

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-07-22T13:59:50-07:00

At this very moment I am backing up my MacBook in preparation for a Lion install. I want to be able to go back to 10.6.8 in a hurry if I have to, so what I've done is purchase an internal hard 500 GB hard drive (same size as the drive in my MacBook), stick it into my NexStar Hard Drive Dock, and using Super Duper make a complete clone of the MacBook's internal drive. Once that's done, I'll take the old drive out, put the new drive in, and then (with the original drive safely stashed away) I will begin the Lion upgrade. If something goes terribly wrong I can take the Lionized hard drive out, put my 10.6.8 hard drive back in, and I'll be back in business. Whether I have trouble or not I'll make another post here relating my initial Lion experience, hopefully by midnight tonight.

In the meantime, if you're looking for an excellent review of Lion, read John Siracusa's lengthy Lion write-up. Yes, it's long, but it's worth it. Mr. Siracusa has written a detailed review of every Mac OS X version and they are always excellent reading. In fact, it's Mr. Siracusa's reviews that keep me from feeling the need to write one myself. Everything's covered, and long as it is, it's very readable. He even tells you which parts to skip.

If you don't want to read John Siracusa's 18 pages on Lion, try Robert Mohns' Lion review over at Macintouch.com. This is also great stuff, just not as detailed and without Siracusa's legendary deadpan humor. There are plenty of other reviews to be found but these two are the best.

If you're looking for a master list of what works with Lion and what doesn't, you're just like me. There really isn't an official list. There is a nice bit of collective work, relying on reader contributions, over at RoaringApps.com, but it is hardly complete and certainly not official. However, it's the best there is as of this writing and a useful place to start. Note that some of the reports at RoaringApps were posted in the months leading up to Lion's release so it's possible that the final "shipping" version of Lion took care of some of the issues seen there. (How weird it feels to write about Lion "shipping," when it comes to us over the internet, with no box or cellophane or truck or plane-- or ship. We are living in a modern world.)

That's it for now. Gotta wait for that backup to finish.

UPDATE: Lion is up and running on my MacBook. The backup took longer than I thought it would and so did the installation of Lion. And, with Spotlight re-indexing the drive (apparently it has to do this), the fan is going full-blast and the machine is sluggish. I expect the machine to feel speedy again when Spotlight is finished.

So far, I've done VERY brief tests of Microsoft Word (from both Office 2008 and 2011), and they both seem to work. The AutoUpdater worked in 2008-- that piece of Office 2008 had itself been updated, and placed in a new location, leaving behind the older, PPC version of Microsoft AutoUpdate. The older one won't work but it doesn't matter-- the new one will. And if you have kept your Office 2008 installation up to date, you will already have the new Microsoft AutoUpdate.

There are some neat new features in Lion and we'll start covering those soon. The focus for now is on compatibility, so if you have a question about a particular app, let me know and I'll see if I can test it for you.

UPDATE 2 (7-25-2011): Microsoft Office 2008's main problem with Lion is in the Microsoft Setup Assistant. It will not run properly under Lion. So, if you already have Office 2008, you have a chance of it working in Lion, especially if you don't use Entourage. If you try to install Office 2008 after you put Lion on, you'll have problems. It just won't work. Office 2011 is then your only hope (available via Amazon here).

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Don't Rush to Install Lion (Mac OS X 10.7)

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-07-19T21:09:16-07:00

We all like new stuff. With Apple's new Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) coming out tomorrow and for only $29.99 it's oh-so-tempting to download it as soon as possible. But I wouldn't do that if I were you. You might end up with a better operating system, but you might also end up with a printer that doesn't print, a scanner that doesn't scan, installers that don't install, and programs that won't launch.

Your best course of action is to wait. While you're waiting, do your homework: find out whether your printer will work with 10.7, and whether your scanner will work with 10.7, and whether your programs will work with 10.7. I would guess that they might not.

Here is a partial list of software that I know you will have trouble with after installing Mac OS X Lion.

Microsoft Office 2004
Quicken (any version except for "Quicken Essentials")
FileMaker Pro 7 or earlier (those versions won't run at all-- later versions have issues too)
Palm Desktop
Adobe Creative Suite CS2 or earlier (Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, InDesign CS2, etc.)
AppleWorks

In some cases, solutions exist but they all cost money. For example, you can upgrade to Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 , upgrade to Microsoft Office 2011 (get the Business Edition if you want Outlook), upgrade to FileMaker Pro (but don't rush out to do that-- I would not bet on the current version working on Day One)). In other cases, there is no upgrade to be had-- not for Quicken, not for Palm Desktop, not for AppleWorks. In those cases, you'd be looking for another program to use. You'd better think about exporting the data from those applications before you install 10.7-- if you can't launch, you can't export.

UPDATE: you can download Microsoft Office 2011 (Home and Student Family Pack-- 3 Installs, or Home and Business-- 2 installs) from the Amazon Mac App Store via this link. Sorry, they don't have the single-installation versions available for download but if you need it now, you need it now.

I am sure that in time most (but not all) of the incompatibilities created by Lion will be dealt with. The key phrase is "in time." Don't expect everything to work right away. My advice: wait. Let someone else find out that stuff doesn't work. Give developers time to gather bug reports and put out some updates. Make your move to Lion after that.

When you do decide to go to Lion, please make sure that you have a backup. If things go wrong it would be nice to be able to go back to 10.6.8.

UPDATE 2: the people at RoaringApps.com are compiling an extensive Lion compatibility table. See it at http://roaringapps.com/apps:table. Notable on the list: Microsoft Office 2004 (does not work), Microsoft Office 2008 (tested, has some problems), Microsoft Office 2011 (tested, has some problems). What a great time to switch to Apple's iWork. Here's a link to a good deal on it at Amazon.

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How to Compress a PDF on a Mac, Including in Lion

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-07-13T20:00:32-07:00

Sometimes you have a PDF that you want to compress, usually because you want to email it and you know it's too big to send. Here's an easy way to do it, and it uses Apple's Preview program, something that comes with every Mac. (If Acrobat opens when you double-click a PDF, try Control-clicking on a PDF's icon and then choosing "Preview.")

Here's the Get Info box for the Keynote '09 Manual (you know: click on the icon once, then File/Get Info). You can see the size (boxed in red): 13.8 megabytes. That's too big to email, so you need to compress it. Turns out it's really easy to do.

Get your document open in Preview, then choose Save As... from Preview's File menu.

UPDATE: In Mac OS X Lion, Preview's File menu doesn't have a Save As... command! It does have an Export... command, and that's what you'll choose in Lion. Everything else is the same.

You'll get this box:

(If you don't see a box this big, click the triangle (boxed in blue here) to expand it.) Notice the "Quartz Filter: Reduce File Size" (boxed in red). You have to choose that. Ordinarily, it says "Quartz Filter: None." Change it to say "Quartz Filter: Reduce File Size." Below: the other choices, in case you're interested. I don't think I've ever used any of them. Experiment if you'd like but for our purposes here, use "Reduce File Size."

You should give your reduced-size PDF a new name before clicking "Save" because you will want to be able to compare the reduced one to the original. You don't want to over-write the original. At least I don't think you do.

In this example, I got info on the reduced-size PDF and looky how much smaller it is:

The reduced-size version is less than 25% as big as the original. That's great. This one, we can email.

Of course, before emailing it we want to check the quality. Here are some screen shots showing you the original and the reduced-size versions (look in the title bars-- the smaller one says "smaller").

Virtually identical. However, compression is not always so neat and clean. In some cases the quality will not be very good after being compressed. But, a lot of times it will be, and since Preview is right there on your Mac already, it is certainly worth a try.

Written by +Christian Boyce
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VIDEO TIP: My Favorite Safari Tips

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-07-10T18:34:29-07:00

Today's tips are all about Safari. They will save you time. I guarantee it, or double your money back.

Click the picture below to start the show. You'll see, in vivid color, how to access the Google search box from the keyboard, how to open links without leaving the page you're on, and the fastest way to type in a new web address.

Written by +Christian Boyce
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Quicken for Mac Incompatible with Lion

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-07-07T21:29:35-07:00

Mac OS X 10.7, otherwise known as "Lion", is coming soon. If you are on 10.6.8 you'll be able to download it in a few weeks for $29. It might be better if you don't, because you might not be able to use some of the software you're used to using. Such as Quicken.

Yes, Quicken. After all these years (five of them), Quicken is still not Intel-native. Instead, it's written for the older PowerPC chip (PPC). Apple provides software called Rosetta which translates PPC programs into something the Intel Macs can use, but it slows everything down and while it's available in every version of Mac OS X from 10.0 to 10.6, Apple is leaving it out of Lion. What it means is you will not be able to use Quicken on a Mac running Lion.

You can read all about it here, straight from Quicken's support web site.

It's easy to get mad at Intuit (Quicken's publisher) and say they should have built an Intel-native Quicken by now (five years after Apple announced the switch to Intel chips). In fact, it's so easy that a lot of people have gotten mad and said that already. I wouldn't bother. Intuit has a very poor track record when it comes to listening to customer feedback regarding their Macintosh products and I would not expect them to change their tune now.

If you're already using "Quicken Essentials" you'll be OK-- Quicken Essentials is Intel-native. But, most people use the "real" Quicken, because Quicken does more than Quicken Essentials does. Essentials can't pay bills online, and it can't track investment activity (though it does show you how much each investment is worth). The reports aren't as good in Essentials either.

Intuit will sell you a copy of Quicken Essentials, which WILL run on Lion, for $24.99 (half-off) if you use this link. If you're using Quicken 2006, or 2007 on a Mac, and you really want to run Lion, spend the money and get a copy of Essentials and see how you like it-- BEFORE installing Lion. (If you're using an older version of Quicken you will have to upgrade to Quicken 2006 at least before moving to Essentials. That will complicate things. Thanks Intuit!)

QuickBooks is a different story. QuickBooks might work with Lion (at least it's Intel-native, so there's hope). With Quicken, there's no hope. Actually, there is a tiny bit of hope: Intuit might try buying or licensing Rosetta and folding it into Quicken itself. I don't think they'll be able to do that, but if they do it would be a slick solution. Better, of course, would be for Intuit to hire more Mac programmers and have them build an Intel-native version of Quicken. Even better would have been to start this effort a few years ago.

There are plenty of other programs that won't work in Lion too. Anything that it written for the PowerPC chip simply won't work. Easy way to find out whether your programs are PPC or not: open the Applications folder, click once on an application, then Command-I to Get Info. Look toward the top of the Get Info window. You want it to say "Kind: Application (Intel)." See below.

Note: just because it's an Intel application doesn't mean it will work just fine in Lion. There could be some issues, but at least we have a chance.

If you see something like the following, you're sunk. This application will not ever work on Lion.

(What a coincidence. We were just talking about Quicken!)

You can do this on a one-by-one basis, which is fine, or you can do it all at once. To do it all at once, go to the Apple menu and choose "About This Mac..." and then click the "More Info..." button. That will bring up the System Profiler, and in there you can click on Applications and see what kind of app each item is. See below.

Just remember: PowerPC apps will not work on Lion. Intel apps might, and it's likely that most of them will (maybe after an update or two). Classic apps won't work on Lion either, in case you were wondering.

This looks to be a somewhat messy transitional time in the Mac world. Some software is going to be left behind. Some people are going to stick with 10.6 as long as they can in order to keep using their older software. If you're thinking of buying a Mac in the next few months and you have some PPC applications it might make sense to buy a Mac before Lion comes out, so it will have 10.6 installed and therefore, Rosetta. Eventually you won't have a choice, but right now you do. Do some legwork now and figure out whether you're going to have issues with Lion so when the time comes you'll be ready.

Written by +Christian Boyce
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The iMom Project, Day Ten

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-07-06T22:28:28-07:00

Ten tips in ten days. It's the iMom Project, Day Ten.

Tonight: the iPhone's Settings app.

That's what it looks like: three gears, in what has become the international symbol for settings, or preferences, or tools (or gears). I don't know why three gears means "Settings" on the iPhone but it does. And, in a big departure from what we've gotten used to on the Mac, just about all of the settings for the iPhone-- including those for most of the apps, are packed into this one Settings app. (On the Mac, the settings for each program-- Mail, Safari, iPhoto-- are accessed by going to the program first, then to the settings that are specific to that program. Not so on the iPhone. On the iPhone, you go to the Settings first.)

There are hundreds of things to play with in the Settings. I'll show you the ones I think are the most important and interesting.

By the way, if there was one right way to do everything there wouldn't be a Settings app at all. You don't have to do everything my way.

The picture above is what you see when you launch the Settings app. Apple's done a great job of putting the most important stuff near the top. Airplane Mode should be OFF unless you are on an Airplane because when it's on, you can't make a phone call or use the 3G wireless service. Wi-Fi shows the network you're connected to, unless Wi-Fi's switched off. More on Wi-Fi in a minute. Notifications: you probably want that on, because that's the thing that lets apps pop up little messages like baseball scores and weather alerts and the word of the day, even when you're not using those apps. If you turn it off, none of that fun stuff happens.

You can touch the little gray arrow at the end of Notifications and make adjustments on an app-by-app basis. For example, I let the eBay app send me alerts and play sounds (even when it is not the frontmost app), but I don't let the ESPN app do that. Totally up to you. Play around and experiment.

Location Services is a good thing. In general, you want it on; as with Notifications, you control which apps get to know where you are. I let the Google app know my location (that way, when I search using the Google app, it offers to "use my location" to help me find stuff near me), and I let the AAA Discount app know my location because it can help me find discounts near me if it knows where I am. I couldn't come up with a good reason for Dictionary to know where I am, so I turned Location Services off for that app.

There are lots of options for you in Sounds, Brightness, and Wallpaper but you will figure those out on your own. So I'm skipping them. Let's touch "General" and see what we can find in there.

The big deal here is Bluetooth. Turn it off. All it does for you is drain the battery. What it does for other people, in some cases, is connect a wireless headset to their iPhones... wirelessly (for the rest of the people, it's draining the battery, or causing head cancer, or otherwise not doing any good). Bluetooth is sort of like Wi-Fi but you don't use if for the same things. Wi-Fi is a networking thing-- it gets your iPhone onto the internet. Bluetooth is like a USB cable-- it connects "things" together. Macs use Bluetooth too, notably for wireless mice and keyboards, but whether on a Mac or an iPhone, it uses up batteries pretty quickly so in the case of your iPhone, turn it off.

Auto-Lock controls how soon the iPhone's screen goes to black. Mine is set to 1 Minute because the sooner it goes black, the less it's using the battery. (You can dim the screen in the Brightness section of the Settings to save the battery even more.) If you don't want others to be able to use your iPhone you can turn on the Passcode Lock, but you will soon get tired of typing in your four-digit code every time you wake the iPhone from sleep. Plus it's one more thing to remember. However, for some people the inconvenience and the extra password is worth it.

I want to hop back to the Wi-Fi section for a minute (use the Settings "back arrow" at top left to go back). You will notice that "Ask to Join Networks" is OFF. That's probably the right setting for everyone. If you turn it ON, you'll get all kinds of messages saying things like "Would you like to join the Joe Smith network" as you move about the town. Maybe you do, maybe you don't-- but the odds are pretty good that you're not going to know the password to the Joe Smith network anyway, so you may as well not even try. And in that case, you don't need the message to pop up in the first place. So turn Ask to Join Networks OFF.

Back to the General Settings again, and then to Mail Contacts and Calendars. Scroll down to the Mail part. Here you can change the font size for your emails (that is, you can make the text bigger or smaller), and you can specify how many lines of each email will show when you're looking at them as a list. I would turn off Organize By Thread-- it is right for some people but I don't think it's right for you. What it does is group all messages that are related (that is, you write me, I reply, you reply-- and Mail shows this as ONE "conversation" rather than three messages). I think you like seeing each email, in arrival order. If that's the case, leave Organize By Thread off. You can turn it on to see whether you like it or not, and then come back to the Settings and change it back.

Back to the first page of Settings-- then touch Phone. Lots of good stuff here. See below.

Your settings won't be exactly like this, but you will find the Call Forwarding, Call Waiting, and Show My Caller ID options. They're worth exploring. I like Caller ID ON so that others know that I'm the one ringing their phones. I think they're more likely to answer the phone if they know that it's me. If I ever get the notion that they're LESS likely to answer the phone if they know it's me I'll turn Caller ID off..

Here are the settings for Safari. I think yours should look just like mine.

Finally, here are settings for "Messages", which to you means "Text Messages." Except, as we know from yesterday, a text message can also include a picture, and that's what "MMS" is about. Your MMS Messaging should be ON.

You will probably figure out what these options do, and you won't break anything by playing around so by all means go in there and make some changes. But, I think you should make your settings for Messages look like mine do.

There are zillions more settings, mostly for non-Apple apps. You have to scroll down a little in the Settings app to find them. You won't hurt anything by looking, so go in there and get a little more familiar with some of the available options. It's easy to be overwhelmed by it all, but do a little at a time. And press the Home button when you've had enough. And of course you can call me for help.

That's it: your tenth iPhone tip in ten (non-consecutive) days. It's a lot to know but even if you learned half of it you're way ahead. Using an iPhone is fun and handy, and it's more fun and more handy when you know how to use it better. I am guessing that you know how to use it better now.

And that's ten.

Mac OS X 10.6.8 Printing Issue, and a Fix!

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-07-06T14:56:43-07:00

We interrupt the iMom Project to bring you this news about the Mac OS X 10.6.8 update. If you have a networked printer there is a chance that the printer won't work after you update to 10.6.8. 10.6.7 works perfectly but 10.6.8 has a problem. Think it over before automatically clicking "Install".

UPDATE: the 10.6.8 "supplemental update" (available via Software Update, in the Apple menu) fixes the problem. (7-25-2011)

The problem has been traced to a small change in the printing system. It appears to be a mistake. Fortunately, the fix is relatively easy. Just go to this web page: Mac users: After updating to 10.6.8, Getting “paused printer” message. FIXED! and download the Network Printer fix. Takes just a few seconds. Thanks to Eliran Sapir for the web page and the fix.

If your printer is connected with a USB cable don't worry, this issue won't affect you. But if you use a networked HP printer, or a networked Xerox, or a networked Canon or networked Minolta, or many others, you may run into the problem. The symptom is you try to print and right away the printer reports "paused" even though it is not. You won't make it work by resetting the printer system or reloading drivers or repairing permissions, so don't bother. Just use Eliran's fix. It only takes a minute and you'll be back in business.


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The iMom Project, Day Nine

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-07-05T20:58:36-07:00

Ten tips in ten days. It's the iMom Project, Day Nine.

You already know how to take a picture and email it: take the photo, get to the Camera Roll in the Photos app, and then touch the little curvy arrow flying out of a rectangle. I circled in red the little curvy arrow flying out of the rectangle in the picture below.

Turns out that little curvy arrow flying out of a rectangle has a name-- the Sharing button-- and it turns out that it's not exclusive to the Photos app. It shows up other places too. I will show you one more place, and you will keep your eye out for more. First, let's talk about the various options hiding behind the Sharing button in the Photos app.

You've been using the Email Photo option, but the others may be new to you (they also might not all be there for you-- some of these options showed up in iOS 4, and I haven't had time to upgrade your iPhone from iOS 3. Something to look forward to.)

Email Photo: does what it sounds like. Address the email and give it a subject, write a little if you want, and send it. Note: the iPhone may ask you whether you want to send a small, medium, or large version of the picture-- if it does, you have to make a choice. Until you do the email does not get sent.

MMS: this sends the picture as a "text message." We just learned to "text" and you know how cool that can be-- now, you can "text" a picture to someone. If they have an iPhone it will show up on their iPhone without them going to "check email" or anything (just like a text message always does). The pictures you send this way are smaller than the ones you email, unless you choose "small" as the email option.

Send to MobileMe: you don't have a MobileMe account so this one is not going to do much for you. Even if you did have a MobileMe account you wouldn't have one for long, as the "iCloud" service will unfortunately not include this feature when it comes into being and MobileMe goes away. But, in the interest of completeness, I will tell you that the idea with Send to MobileMe is you can "publish" photos to the internet, storing them on Apple's special MobileMe servers, where other people can come to see them without you having to email the pictures (for an example, click here). It is really neat, and it's a drag that Apple has decided to pull the plug on it. The iCloud will have something similar, but not the same, and of course the button will have to get a new name too-- I am betting on "Send to iCloud" or something like that. We can talk about this again in a few months when iCloud is up and running.

Assign to Contact: this a great one. You will use it all the time. When you tap "Assign to Contact" you're shown all of the people in your Contacts list. Scroll around and find the person you want to assign the picture to. You might think that's it, but it's not! You then get to resize and move the picture, so if it's a picture of three people you can use it three times (once for each person) by scaling and moving the picture to show each person in turn. The picture will pop up on your iPhone's screen when the person calls. It will also show up in a tiny version on each email you get from that person. It's very cool.

Use as Wallpaper: sort of nice. "Wallpaper" means different things depending on which version of the iOS software you're using. On iOS 3 (which is what your iPhone uses) "wallpaper" means the picture that you see when you wake up the iPhone (also known as "the lock screen" because it is showing when you "unlock" the iPhone with that little swipe from left to right). One iOS 4, "wallpaper" still refers to the "unlock screen", but it also refers to the background behind the app icons. In iOS 4, you get to make the choice, and you can assign the picture to the lock screen, to the picture behind the icons, or both. Personally, I like the background to be black, so I would never change that, even though I know how. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. But change that "lock screen" image as often as you like.

Print: I will give you ONE guess as to what this button would do. Obviously, it's supposed to print the picture, but it doesn't work on YOUR iPhone because your iPhone is on iOS 3 and the Print feature didn't exist until iOS 4. Don't feel bad about missing out on printing though. The feature works with only a few printers (a very select few from HP, and no others), and you can always just email the picture to yourself and print it from your iMac. (Note: if you were on iOS 4, and you didn't have an HP printer, and you still wanted to print from your iPhone to your printer, I would set you up with Printopia. For $20 it makes this so-called "AirPrint" feature work with practically any printer.)

Whew. There's more behind the "Share" button in the Photos app than I remembered.

I told you a LONG time ago (in this blog entry) that I'd tell you about one more place where the Sharing button works. The "one more place" is the Safari app. Anytime you're looking at a web page on your iPhone you'll see a row of buttons across the bottom. See below. I've circled the button in red. Note: on iOS 3, the Sharing button is simply a "+". They fixed that in iOS 4. Whether a + or a Sharing button, it works the same. This time, being on iOS 3 is just as good as being on iOS 4.

You get some options when you tap the Sharing button in the Safari app, and here they are:

Add Bookmark: it does what you think it does, for whatever web page you're on. And, since your iPhone is synching with your iMac, a bookmark you make on the iPhone will show up on your iMac as soon as the two devices sync. This is very handy.

Add to Home Screen: puts an icon on your Home Screen. The icon is essentially a bookmark (to the web page you're one), with a nice icon. Touching the icon takes you straight to the web page. It's super-handy. Try this one right away-- I am sure that you will use it all the time.

Mail Link to this Page: by far the easiest way to tell someone about the web page you're on. It's just like emailing a photo, except here you're sending a link to a web page.

Print: not for you, not yet. Same problems as above-- only works in iOS 4, and then only just barely, unless you get the excellent Printopia for twenty buckos. We will cross that bridge later.

If I had to pick my favorite "Sharing" items, I'd pick "Email Photo" and "Mail Link to this Page." I use those constantly. The other Sharing items are interesting too, though, so give them a chance and see what you think.

That's nine.

The iMom Project, Day Eight

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-07-03T12:17:22-07:00

Ten tips in ten days. It's the iMom Project, Day Eight.

If this were Jeopardy! they'd call it "Potpourri." But, it's not Jeopardy!, so I'm calling it "My Favorite iPhone Tips." Try 'em all.

Favorite Tip #1: The Home Button.
The Home button is very important. If you're using an app (Mail, maybe) and you press the Home button you'll be taken to the Home screen that you were last looking at. You can have more than one Home screen, as you have probably noticed-- some of your apps are on "this" Home screen and some of them are on "that" Home screen and some of them are on "the other" Home screen, etc. But, when you press Home, you come back to the one you were last on.

If you press the Home button when you're already looking at a Home screen, you are taken to the first Home screen (the one at the far left). That's handier than swipe-swipe-swipe. And, if you're already on the first Home screen, and you press the Home button, you are taken to the Search screen, which we talked about a few days ago.

Favorite Tip #2: Take a Screen Shot
There are plenty of times when you're going to see something funny on your iPhone and you want me to tell you what it is. But, since I'm not always going to be in the neighborhood your best bet is to take a picture of the iPhone's screen and email it to me. It is very easy to do. Just press the Home button and the Sleep button (at the top right edge of the iPhone) at the same time. (They're not super-strict about "at the same time." You can be a little late with one button or the other and it will still work.) When you do it right, you'll hear a sound, the same one you hear when you use the iPhone to take a picture. You will also see the screen sort of "flash" a little. After that, nothing happens, but the screen's been captured. Go to the Photos app and you'll see it in the "Camera Roll" (which is where all of the photos taken with the iPhone are). From there, you touch the picture, then touch the "Sharing" button at bottom left (rectangle with a curvy arrow flying out of it), just as you do with photos that you want to email. The rest you already know how to do-- just address it, title it, and send it.

Bonus to Favorite Tip #2: if you take too long to hit the Sharing button, it disappears. That's not a problem. Just touch the picture to bring the Sharing button back. Touch the picture again to make it disappear.

Favorite Tip #3: Scroll to the Top
Lots of iPhone apps have more information than fits on one little screen. The Contacts app, the Mail App, the Calendar app, Safari-- all of those, and many more, involve a bit of scrolling. Sometimes you end up way way down and you want to scroll back to the top. You could do the swipe-swipe swipe method, but better and faster is to just touch the time at the very top of the iPhone's screen. That will take you straight to the top, in one quick move.

Bonus to Favorite Tip #3: if you use this "touch the time" method in Mail, it not only takes you to the top, but it reveals a Search box where you can type and find a particular message. If you do it in Safari it takes you to the top and reveals the address box plus the Google search box. Do it in Contacts and you get a search box too. Very handy.

That's eight.

The iMom Project, Day Seven

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-07-02T01:07:09-07:00

Ten tips in ten days. Day Seven.

(Note: we didn't say "Ten tips in ten days in a row.")

Today we're going to learn about the Maps app. You will find it very handy. Start it up and work along with me.

The items circled in red are important. The Maps app has two modes: Search and Directions. We want Search, at least for now. "Search" lets you find things like ATMs and gas stations and bookstores and donuts and Macy's and thrift shops. And addresses of people in your address book. So, tap "Search" to be sure you're in that mode.

The white arrow in the blue square at bottom left locates your iPhone (and presumably, you) on the map. Touch that once. Your iPhone's location is marked with a blue pin on the map. You can see, from the picture above, where my iPhone (and presumably, me) was last night at 1:15 AM. (Note: on older iPhone software versions, the arrow isn't an arrow. It's a sort of "cross-hairs" circle thing. It serves the same purpose. I think they changed it after Sarah Palin got into trouble for having cross-hairs on her map of Arizona.)

If you touch the blue pin, a little bit of information pops up. It will say "Current Location" and it will tell you where it thinks your phone is. If you want that little bit of information to go away, touch somewhere else on the map. You can bring it back again anytime.

If you touch the white arrow in the blue box at bottom left you will activate the compass feature, which rotates the map to match "real life." If your iPhone is facing north, nothing happens. But if your iPhone is facing south, the map will spin around on the iPhone so that "up" is south. Touch at bottom left again to make the map spin around again so that north is up.

So now let's find something. At 1:15 AM, I wanted a cup of coffee. So I touch at the top, in the search box. I type in Coffee and then touch Search (blue button at bottom right). Here's what it looked like for me.

Each of those red pins represents a place that has to do with coffee. The closest one shows its info automatically. Touch any pin to show its information instead. Touch the map to just show pins (no information). In the picture below, I've touched another pin because I know that the Coffee Bean and Tea Bakery is closed at 1:15 AM.

I don't know anything about this Funnel Mill place, but it's easy to find out: just touch the white arrow in the blue circle at the right of the little information flag. Here's what I got:

This is great stuff. From here, I could touch the phone number to call, or bring up their website, or even get directions. So easy. Turns out they were closed, by the way.

The Maps app searches the area that's showing on the iPhone screen and if it finds something matching what you searched for, that's great. If it can't find what you're searching for it zooms out until it can. But, once it's done a search, it's done. If you drag the map around with your finger it will dot automatically update to show you more matches in the area now shown on the map.

For example: suppose you're at home and you touch the white arrow at bottom left of the Maps app to locate your iPhone (and presumably you) on the map. Now you search for "Macy's." You will see a bunch of red pins representing the nearest Macy's stores. Now you think "I am going to be down the Valley visiting Uncle Ernie soon-- I wonder if there is a Macy's near him." So you drag the map around with your finger until it is showing Uncle Ernie's neighborhood, and THEN you touch up in the search box, where it still says "Macy's", and THEN you touch the blue Search button at the lower right to do the search. Get it?

You can "pinch" to show more map on the screen, and "reverse pinch" to show less map (but more detail). You will want to get good at this pinching and reverse pinching with the Maps app, even though you know how to triple-tap to zoom in. Triple-tapping is a little on the coarse side for this application.

There is more-- a lot more-- to the Maps app but this is enough for now. If you want to read more, here's a link to a write-up I did on the Maps app two years ago. Interestingly, I was looking for coffee two years ago too.

That's seven.

The iMom Project, Day Six

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-06-30T19:57:52-07:00

Ten tips in ten days. Day Six.

One of the things that we've grown used to on the Mac is Undo. Make a mistake, and if you catch it soon enough you can go to the Edit menu and choose Undo. Super powerful, and super handy. I use it all the time. Turns out the iPhone has Undo too, but you have to know how to do it. Or undo it. Whatever.

First let's look at some scenarios where you'd want to use Undo. Maybe you've been writing an email on your iPhone, and somehow you select a bunch of text, like so:

And then, with all that text selected, you start typing again, or maybe just accidentally touch a key on the iPhone keyboard, and all of a sudden all of that text that was selected is gone. It happens. Oops.

Or, maybe you typed something, backspaced over it on purpose, and then changed your mind again and decided you wanted it back after all. Each of these scenarios screams for an "Undo." So now we're going to learn how.

Remember the Etch-a-Sketch? Remember how you erased it by shaking it? Of course you do. If you think of it as "undoing" your Etch-a-Sketch picture (instead of erasing it) you will know how to "undo" on the iPhone. That's right: when you want to Undo something on the iPhone, you shake it.

Give it a whirl. Type something into an email (or anywhere else that you enter text on the iPhone). Now shake the iPhone (side to side). A little message pops up, with a button that lets you "Undo Typing." Looks like this:

Touch the Undo Typing button, and of course you are back to where you started... but if you shake the iPhone again, you get another little message, and this time there's a "Redo Typing" button. (There's still an Undo Typing button, which would "Undo" your typing even further.) Looks like this:

You can tell from the times on these screen shots that I took a long time to think about whether I wanted to undo or redo, but that's OK. You can take as long as you like.

This "Shake to Undo" method works on the iPads also but you really have to move it to make it happen. I recommend that those who want to use "Shake to Undo" on an iPad hold on with both hands because if you don't have a good grip you will fling the iPad across the room.

That wraps up Day Six of the iMom Project. Hoping you learned something.

Bonus: music to shake your iPhone to.

The iMom Project, Day Five

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-06-29T20:41:30-07:00

Ten tips in ten days. Day Five.

Let's talk about the Calculator app. I am sure that you have tried it already, and you are probably thinking it's a little simplistic for a Math major like yourself. Which it is. But, sometimes you just need to do a little quick addition or division or whatever. And the Calculator is great for that.

But wait, there's more.

Suppose you enter something into the Calculator and you make a mistake. Maybe you're trying to enter 727.62 and you get everything right except for the last character. Do you then touch the "Clear" button (marked with a C) and start over? Well, you could. But you don't have to! All you have to do is swipe your finger across the number display and the last digit is erased. Swipe it again and another digit's erased. Erase as much as you need to, then type in the proper digits. See below.

First, the original boo-boo...

Then, we swipe from left to right, in the Calculator's display (or, as it turns out, from right to left in the Calculator's display-- doesn't matter) and we get this:

Finally, we touch the proper digit-- the "2"-- and we are done. This saved us a little bit of tippy-tapping-- all we did was one swipe, and then the 2. That's less work than touching the Clear button and then typing in 727.62 again, which we could easily mis-type again anyway.

Here's another neat thing. The "Clear" button clears only the last number entered, so if you are in the middle of a calculation and you make a mistake you don't have to start over. For example, if you want to figure out the sales tax on an item that costs $19.37, and you type in the 19.37 and touch the X and then you type 0.875 instead of 0.0875, you can touch the "C" and clear just the 0.875. Then you can type in the right number and hit Equals and you're done. (You will notice, after you touch the C button, that it changes to "AC"-- for "All Clear." That can be handy too.)

Of course there is still more.

If you rotate the iPhone you get a much more sophisticated and capable calculator. Have a look at this beauty:

Plenty of options, and all for free. Note: you can rotate the iPhone in the middle of a calculation and it won't miss a beat. (One reason to use the rotated one, even if you don't need the functions, is the rotated Calculator can show 16 digits while the "normal" one shows 9.)

Want more? Good, there IS more. Suppose you use the Calculator and you get some big ol' number as the result, and now you want to put that number into an email. Do you jot the number down, and then switch to the Mail app and then type it in there, giving you two chances to make a simple transcription mistake? No you do not! You touch the Calculator's result with your finger, hold it down until it turns blue (the result, not your finger), then let go and tap "Copy." Now you can go to the Mail app and paste. This way, you can't write it down wrong, and you can't type it in wrong. Way to go, Apple.

One more hint: turn up the volume when you're using the Calculator so you can hear when you've pressed a key. The sound is good feedback.

OK, that's it. Made it with two hours to spare. Halfway through The Project.

The iMom Project, Day Four

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-06-28T10:07:54-07:00

Ten tips in ten days. Day Four.

Today's tip: use the "search" screen. It looks like this:

Once you get to this screen (I will tell you how in a minute), you can search for just about anything on your iPhone (or iPad). Here's a partial list:

Apps
People
Notes
Emails
Calendar events

I say "partial list" because you can also search, right from this screen, the web (using Google), or the famous Wikipedia. But that stuff's not actually "on" your phone, and the list was about stuff on your phone, so we have to make that distinction.

Let's talk about how to get to this screen. There are two ways that I know of:

You can, from any of the home screens, swipe from left to right until you get there, or...
You can, from any home screen, press the Home button (which takes you to the first home screen), and then press the Home button again. If you're already at the first home screen when you press "Home" so much the better.

Note: do not press the Home button multiple times quickly. Press it once, see what happens, and then (if necessary) press it again.

So... let's say you want to call me on your fancy new iPhone. Yes, you could go to Contacts, and then you could search for me, and then you could touch my phone number to call me. But, now that you know how to search the whole iPhone, you can press the Home button a time or two to get there, type in a few letters, and voila, there I am. You save yourself the trouble of going to the Contacts, and the result is just as good. See below.

Just touch my name, which brings up all of my numbers, and touch the one you want to call. By the way, I got rid of the old 310-927-3711 phone number so you can take that out of your address book. There are enough ways to contact me without having a second cell phone.

Notice, when you find stuff this way, that you don't have to specify WHERE you want to look. The search automatically in all of the places listed above, all at once. That's cool. Also, you don't even have to touch the blue Search button. The iPhone will search as soon as you stop typing. Everything should be so easy.

So that's it. Play around with this. I think you will be surprised at how handy it is. You might even find things that you didn't know were there!

The iMom Project, Day Three

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-06-27T21:58:33-07:00

Here we go. Day Three.

The iPhone clock app. So simple. Yet, so fabulous. I use the clock every day and so should you. Here are some ideas for you:

Use it as an alarm clock. It's way way WAY better than the alarm clock you use now, because with this one you can set multiple alarms! Set an alarm for 7 AM on weekdays and for 9 AM on weekends. Set an alarm to remind you that your favorite TV show will soon be on. Set an alarm to remind yourself to go to bed!
Use it as a timer. It's way way WAY better than the timer you use now, because the one in the kitchen is attached to the oven and if you're out in the yard you won't hear it go off. Set a timer for two minutes so you don't forget to stir the coffee. Set a timer for 12 minutes so you don't forget to take the biscuits out of the oven. Set a timer for 60 minutes so you don't run out of time on the parking meter.

The clock app actually has four functions, not just two, but I never use the stopwatch and I only used the World Clock a couple of times-- I don't need to know what time it is in Paris on a daily basis. But who cares about what I don't use. It's the stuff that I DO use that is so neat. Anyway, get familiar with the iPhone's Clock app, and you'll find yourself using it all the time.

Here's a picture of my iPhone, with various alarms set for various days.

And here's a picture of the timer, ready for the biscuits.

That's it. Check back tomorrow.

The iMom Project, Day Two

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-06-26T15:23:27-07:00

Ten tips in ten days. Day 2.

When taking a picture with the iPhone, remember that the picture is taken when you take your finger off of the button, not when you touch it. So, get the camera app going, compose your picture, put your finger on the button and keep it there waiting for that perfect moment... and then, very gently, take your finger away. You will get better pictures this way (stabbing at the button to capture the picture at just the right time results in a jarred iPhone, and a blurry picture).

Bonus: remember that that the camera "button" is on the screen-- it's NOT the home button. See below.

The iMom Project

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-06-25T22:30:02-07:00

I set Mom up with an iPhone 3GS this week, and she's getting the hang of it. I thought I'd speed up the learning process by teaching her a tiny bit about the iPhone every day. My plan is ten tips in ten days. Figuring that a lot of other people are new to the iPhone too I thought I'd put the tips here on the blog so everyone else can benefit. That means you, Debbie, and also you, Christi.

So here we go with Tip Number One.

Know How to Zoom In and Zoom Out
There's a shortcut for zooming in (and out) and people usually "discover" it by mistake. The feature is not necessarily turned on, but if it is, a three-fingered double-tap on the iPhone screen will zoom you way in.

Here's what a home screen looks like normally...

Here's what it looks like after a three-finger double-tap:

That's a 500% zoom, by the way.

I've received calls from people who have accidentally triggered a zoom with the three-finger double-tap. They think that something was wrong with their phones. It can be pretty mysterious the first time, that is for sure, but all you have to do to get out of it is do the three-finger double-tap again. Easy.

You can zoom any screen, any time. Works everywhere. If you want to scroll around when you're zoomed in, use three fingers to drag the screen around.

If you find yourself accidentally zooming in and you want to turn the feature off, do it like this:

Tap the Settings app, then General, then Accessibility, then Zoom. Turn it off using the switch next to the word "Zoom." Of course, if it's off and you want it on, you can switch it ON, and try it right there. No need to "save" or logout or reboot or anything. You can always come back and change this setting later. I leave mine set to "On" because zooming in comes in handy every so often.

OK, that's it for Tip Number One. Give it a whirl.

Welcome to the party, Mom.

Search Google Images by COLOR

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-06-19T15:11:05-07:00

I know, everyone knows how to use Google... but not everyone knows how to use Google IMAGES to search by COLOR. They will if they read this blog entry.

Suppose you go to Google and you search for something. Here, I've searched for Yoda. I want pictures, so I'll click either of the three red-circled "Images" links.

The result of course is a page full of Yoda images.

Of course you can use the options in the left-hand column to choose an image size (use "Medium" or "Large" if you intend to print the image). But... how about those color options? Who would have guessed that you can find images of Yoda that match a color scheme?

Here's what you get when you click the green square.

Of course, Yoda is green. So you don't see a major effect here. However, look what you get with blue, and black, and purple. Very interesting, and just what you need to match your bag and shoes!

Of course it works with other searches, not just for Yoda. Here are some examples of color-filtered Texas wildflowers. First, the non-filtered search...

Then red (it shows right there on the screen)...

Then yellow...

Then pink...

Then blue. Neat.

I think it's rather amazing. I don't know when they added this feature, but as always, as soon as I noticed I wrote it up here.

Radio Interview: WWDC Wrap-Up

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-06-16T16:45:30-07:00

I talked Saturday with with Digital Village, a terrific radio program based in Los Angeles, about Apple's recently concluded World Wide Developers' Conference. We talked about iCloud, iOS 5, and Mac OS X Lion. This link will take you to Digital Village's archived audio page-- my part is right at the top (or, if you're coming in late, it's in the June 11th 2011 section). Lots of other good stuff to listen to while you're in there. Have a look around.

From their web page:

"Digital Village is a weekly broadcast about the impact of technology, computers and the Internet on media and popular culture, hosted by Ric Allan and Doran Barons.

Rather than endless product reviews, we focus on how the technology is changing the way we communicate."

That works for me.

Save Money with Apple's Back to School Promotion

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-06-16T08:43:57-07:00

Apple launched their annual "Back to School" promotion this morning, offering a $100 "Back to School Card" with purchase of a qualifying Mac. The card can be used at the Mac App store, the iPhone/iPad/iPod App Store, the iTunes Store, and the Apple iBookstore.

You have to purchase between now and September 20th, 2011 and to be eligible you have to be a college student, a parent buying for a college student, or a faculty or staff member at any grade level. If you're an elected or appointed member of a school board, or an elected or appointed officer of a PTA or PTO, you're also eligible.

Buy through the Apple Online Store for Education. Or, buy it at your school's Authorized Campus Apple store. Or, buy it at an Apple Retail store and tell them you want the education discount (bring an acceptance letter or a school ID). You'll save at least $50 that way, probably $100, and maybe more than that.

So... you save money on the cost of the machine, AND you get a $100 gift card. You'll also get Mac OS X "Lion" for free via the "Up to Date" program (see this link) so there's another $29 you're not spending. Just about every Mac qualifies, including MacBooks, MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, iMacs, and Mac Pros. Maximum of two per customer.

iPad Keyboard Shortcuts

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-06-10T23:11:13-07:00

I sure love my iPad 2... but I seem to spend a lot of time switching between the regular onscreen keyboard and the numbers one and then back. At least I used to. Now, I make use of a bunch of nifty shortcuts. All of them involve holding down a key on the iPad's onscreen keyboard until you see a pop-up of other keys you can choose from.

See the picture:

This picture shows the pop-ups you'll get when you hold down the iPad's "E" or the "N" or the comma or the period (dark gray keys). The blue shows which symbol will be inserted if you let go without doing anything more. It's easy to get an accented "e" in this manner-- just hold the "E" key, slide up and over to the accented "e", and then let go.

There are many other keys (including the vowels) that will also pop up alternate symbols if you press and hold, so experiment a little and see what you can find. The numbers keyboard also has some alternate symbols-- give that a try as well.

Using this press, hold, and slide method you can save yourself a trip to the numbers keyboard just to get an apostrophe. Now you know how to get an apostrophe from the ABC keyboard, by pressing and holding on the command key. It's only a second or two, but they add up.

Try it. You'l like it.

BONUS: when addressing an email you get a different keyboard. On that one, holding the period down gives you .com, .net, .org, .edu, and .us (in addition to the period). How handy is that! It's my new favorite shortcut. Here's a picture.

DOUBLE BONUS: a lot of this works on the iPhone as well.

Steve Jobs Keynote at WWDC 2011

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-06-06T07:43:24-07:00

Steve Jobs will give the keynote speech at Apple's World Wide Developers Conference today at 10 AM. It is sure to be all over the news. I will post a link to the official keynote video as soon as it is available (it does not appear that we will be able to watch it live at 10 AM).

No one "on the outside" knows what Steve Jobs will show at WWDC, except for what Apple has formally announced:

More stuff about Mac OS X 10.7, aka "Lion"
New stuff about iOS 5 (a new version of the operating system that makes your iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch work)
New stuff about a service called "iCloud"

Anyone who says he knows more is probably just guessing. Apple does not like leaks, so even if a person does have insider info he would be foolish to tell. So no, I don't know whether we will see an iPhone 5. Or an iPad 3. Or some other gizmo that completely changes the game.

Basically don't know any more than you do. I have to wait for the keynote, just like everyone else. No matter what, it will be great to see Steve Jobs doing his thing on stage, even if it's delayed until Apple gets the video up.

Next year might be a different story. By then, I will be, officially, an Apple Developer, building iPad and iPhone apps (I can do simple stuff already, and making progress week to week). Thus, the WWDC would be a great place for me to be next June. In that case, I could report live from Moscone West.

If I can get my company to pay for it I'm going.

UPDATE: the Keynote Speech video is available via this link.

Apple Security Update 2011-003 and the Mac Defender Malware

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-05-31T22:15:19-07:00

There's this bad thing called Mac Defender. It comes from bad guys (Russians, just like in the movies). Then there's this good thing called Apple Security Update 2011-003. It comes from good guys (Apple, Inc.). You want the Security Update 2011-003 because you DON'T want Mac Defender. So, Step One: go to your Apple menu, choose "Software Update...", and install Apple Security Update 2011-003. You can read about it by clicking here but this is a case where you can take my word for it. Get the update and read about it later if you want. For Mac OS X 10.6.7 only. Sorry, Mom.

Mac Defender has gotten a lot of press. It's a scam, pure and simple: a fake anti-virus program that does nothing other than put your credit card info into the wrong hands. It works like this: you're reading a web page when all of a sudden a message appears telling you that your computer is infected with viruses and other malware, and that you need to take care of this problem right away, and Mac Defender offers to do it for you, for a fee. In fact, the warning message is faked; the Mac Defender virus warning is canned, and when "they" say they can clean up the problem they mean that if you give them your credit card info they'll quit with the phony "you're infected!" messages. Pretty easy money-- but that's not the end of it, because now they have your credit card info and you can bet they'll use it.

You know better than to give your credit card info to some total stranger, even if they have a trustworthy-sounding name like Mac Defender. Right? Right. And you know the internet is not locked down nice and tight-- websites are hacked all the time, so malicious code can be put onto a site that you thought you could trust. (It's happened even to Google, believe it or not.) So, it's not going to work to say "Well I never go to those bad websites, I only use Google and PBS.org and ChristianBoyce.blogspot.com"-- the bad guys can stick their nasty code into any site if they try hard enough. Passwords are learned, weaknesses are exploited. Bad things happen. Just don't let them happen to you.

If you get a message on your Mac (or your iPhone, or your iPad) and it says "pay me, quick" it's probably a scam. Take a picture of the screen (Command-Shift-3) and email it to me and I'll help you figure out what's going on.

The really good news here is that Apple has figured out how to stop scams like this in their tracks. Get the Security Update 2011-003 and you're all set. If you are on Mac OS X 10.5, you're somewhat on your own, but just keep being smart and somewhat suspicious and you'll be fine. And of course send me those screenshots (Command-Shift-3).

Here's a nice write-up about the Mac Defender phony anti-virus thing, though it's a little out of date now that Apple's come up with the Security Update. Good reading anyway. Thanks to PCWorld.com for this.

How to Type Perfectly, Part II

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-05-10T21:06:54-07:00

If there's something you type all the time, and it's more than a few characters, why not have your Mac type it for you? This tip will show you how.

Let's say, hypothetically, that your name is "Christian Boyce." Now, let's say you stay up late doing blog entries and AppleScripts and kitchen cleaning (I did say "hypothetically"). Wouldn't it be a drag if staying up late made you tired and you accidentally made a typo while typing your own name? It Could Happen.

Actually, it probably did happen. I don't remember. I'm tired from being up late doing blog entries and AppleScripts. But it's not going to happen anymore, because I've gone into the Language & Text preference pane and set up my own little short-hand substitution. All I have to do now is type "cb" and it's magically expanded to the full "Christian Boyce." You should try it (but use your own name).

Here's the Language & Text preference pane (start by going to the Apple menu, then System Preferences). We're interested in the "Text" part. Yes, I know the name doesn't make a lot of sense.

You can see that Apple provides a few substitutions for you already-- (r) becomes ® and so on. Neat, but not as neat as turning your initials into your name. To do that, click the + at bottom left of the preference pane, and type your shortcut on the left and what it expands to on the right. See below.

Close up the preference pane and start enjoying your shortcut. Ah, but where? Turns out that these substitutions don't work everywhere. Here's a list of applications where the text substitutions definitely work:

Mail
Text Edit
iChat

If it doesn't work for you in those applications, put your cursor somewhere that allows you to enter text, then control-click to reveal a menu. Choose Substitutions/Text Replacement. Then it will work. (To trigger the expansion, type the shortcut, then a space or a return or punctuation.)

You can even make a shortcut that expands to more than one line. For example, you could put your entire mailing address into a shortcut. Imagine typing "hadd" and having your entire home address get typed for you. Neat.

The same sort of thing works in Pages '09 except you turn it on in Pages' own Preferences, and it does not read the list of custom substitutions that you made in System Preferences/Language & Text. Instead it has its own list. Word 2011 has a similar feature but it's under Tools/AutoCorrect.

Hint: don't use a real word for your shortcut. You'll be triggering it all the time. For example, "had" would be a poor choice for the Home Address shortcut. You'd try to type "I had the fish" and it would come out with your address in the middle. Ooopsy.

This is not the end-all, be-all text expansion/substitution method, but it's built into OS X 10.6, so you may as well use it. If you want to do something a little fancier, and you want it to work in practically every application, you should look into TypeIt4Me, TextExpander, and Typinator. Of these, I am leaning toward Typinator. Watch this movie and see how it could work for you.

How to Type Perfectly, Part I

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-05-04T11:28:30-07:00

Suppose you were writing an email using Apple's Mail program. Suppose you made some typing mistakes (who me?). Suppose your email looked like this:

Not very good! But, those red underlines do show you where you made mistakes, and there are plenty of ways to make corrections. I will cover those in a future blog post. For now, though, let's learn how to have Mail correct the problems as you type rather than just underline them. It's a simple one-step procedure.

All you do is get an email window up, and then go to the Edit menu and turn on Correct Spelling Automatically. With that checked, the exact same typing is corrected, behind your back, without you doing anything at all.

Here is how it looks when you make the same typing mistakes, but with Correct Spelling Automatically checked. I'm not kidding. Every single mistake was corrected without me doing ANYTHING. You should try it.

Turns out that this automatic correction works a bunch of other places but Mail is where you will use it the most.

Sorry to say that this only works in OS X 10.6 and higher. Another reason to get to 10.6.

Another Time Machine Backup Success Story

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-04-28T11:39:08-07:00

One of my customers has a Mac Pro tower, and the hard drive went bad last week. A replacement drive was only $60, and it was even bigger and faster than the one that died. Of course the new drive was blank... but we had a Time Machine backup so we restored from that and in less than an hour the customer was back in business.

Turns out we'd only set up this backup system two weeks earlier, so we really lucked out. Let's make sure that you're lucky too. If you don't have a Time Machine backup, let's get you one. You'll need an external hard disk, such as this one:

Seagate GoFlex 1 terabyte external drive, $159.99 from Amazon, with free shipping.

You also need a Mac with OS X 10.5 or higher, and there are a lot of other reasons to have 10.5 or higher so if you're on 10.4.11 let's get you to 10.5 at least. You 10.4.11 people know who you are. (Unless you don't-- in that case, go to the Apple menu and choose "About This Mac" and see what it says in there).

Time Machine is Apple's own backup software, built into the system starting with 10.5, and it works like a charm. If you are on 10.5 or 10.6 you already have the software and it's already installed.

If you buy a drive that is formatted for a Mac (like the Seagate above), all you do is connect it and answer "Yes" when asked whether you want to use it for Time Machine. If you buy some other drive you will probably have to format it as Mac OS X Extended (use the Disk Utility, in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder). Either way, from then on you'll be backing up automatically every hour, nothing for you to worry about, and when your Mac's disk quits working the cost of the backup drive will seem like small potatoes. Recovering data from a dead hard disk will cost you at least $1,000 and usually more. It does not make sense to tempt fate here-- use Time Machine and have that backup for when you need it. Eventually, you'll need it. Make like a Boy Scout and be prepared.

How to Type Accents (and other diacritical marks) on a Mac

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-04-21T14:44:08-07:00

Ever want to type something like that, but all you could get was "Ole"? Or maybe you want to type "¿Que pasa? but you can't find the upside-down question mark. Either way, this is the article for you. We'll have you typing all kinds of groovy accents and symbols and other neat stuff in no time.

You could memorize everything but that's no fun. Here's how you can learn for yourself where the special characters are.

1. Go to System Preferences and click on Keyboard.

2. Check the box that says "Show Keyboard & Character Viewer in menu bar."

Close up System Preferences and look in your menu bar for a new icon. It looks like this:

Enlarged, it looks like this:

3. Click the Keyboard & Character Viewer icon in the menu bar and choose "Show Keyboard Viewer." Now you see a representation of your keyboard. Here's mine.

Try holding down the shift key on your real keyboard. You should see something like this:

Of course this is nothing new. You already knew that you would get capital letters if you held down the Shift key. Notice, by the way, that when you press a key on the keyboard it changes what you see in the Keyboard viewer. Here, the shift key is down, so both shift keys on the screen are highlighted.

4. Now for the good stuff. Hold down the Option key. You'll see something like this:

Ignoring for the time being the orange keys, look at all of the other great stuff in there. Now you know how to type a perfect bullet: Option-8. You can type a cent sign (¢) with Option-4. You can type that upside-down question mark using Option-1. If you think about the Option key as being something like a shift key, you'd be on the right track. The keys do different things when you hold down Shift, and they do other different things when you hold down Option.

Turns out they do other other different things when you hold Option AND Shift at the same time. Here's a look:

If you've ever wanted to type an Apple logo, now you know: it's Option-Shift-K. And there's our upside-down question mark: Option-Shift-question mark.

Now, back to our orange keys. When you hold the Option key by itself it shows you those five orange keys. If you keep the option key down, and then type one of those keys, and then you let go, and then you type a vowel (usually) you will get a special character, along these lines:

à, è, ì, ò, ù

á, é, í, ó, ú

ä, ë, ï, ö, ü

â, ê, î, ô, û

That's going to come in handy someday. Especially if you need to properly type "résumé" (and you might-- there's a recession on you know). Or "Löwenbräu" (and you might-- there's a recession on, you know).

You might have noticed that I did not use the Option-n combination yet. That's because it doesn't work on the vowels. Instead, it works on the "n" itself. So, you type Option-n, then let go, then "n" again, and you get...

Perfect for typing "hasta mañana," a great way to end.

UPDATE: this is all very nice if you are using a Mac with OS X 10.6 or higher. If you are on 10.5, you'll find the controls for turning on the Keyboard Viewer and the Character Viewer under "International" in the System Preferences. If you are on 10.4, it's time to upgrade. Get to 10.5 if on a G5 machine, 10.6 otherwise.

VIDEO TIP: How to Add PDFs to Your iPad

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-04-13T00:01:44-07:00

Recently I hit upon the idea of gathering up as many of my PDF manuals as I could-- manuals for my printer, for software, for my camera, etc.-- and putting them onto my iPad for reading in the iBooks app. The way I do it is easier than what I'd seen described online, so I thought I'd document my method in video form so everyone can benefit.

You can see the three PDFs (Olympus camera manual, HP printer manual, and AppleScript Language Guide) on the top shelf of the iBooks bookcase. Watch for another blog entry here with all kinds of iBooks tips.

UPDATE: if your iTunes is set to "Sync Books" you should drag your PDFs to the LIBRARY in iTunes, at the top left of the iTunes window. If you try to drag to the iPad itself it won't work. You will also have to click the "Sync" button in iTunes when you are done dragging. If you're synching "All Books" that's all you do. If you are synching "Selected Books" you will have to check the box next to these newly-dragged books. Either way, it's not hard.

Giant Email Security Breach

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-04-04T00:04:31-07:00

You are probably going to receive one or more emails, reading something like this:

"Today we were informed by Epsilon Interactive, our national email service provider, that your email address was exposed due to unauthorized access of their system. We have been advised that the only information that was obtained is your name and email address."

That's nice.

I've received four such emails, including two from Ralphs Supermarket (interestingly, the first one says "Dear Christian Boyce" while the second one says "Dear Valued Customer"), one from Best Buy, and one from Robert Half International. Citibank, Walgreen's, and the Home Shopping Network are other companies who use Epsilon for their email marketing, along with many, MANY others. Several of these companies have sent out breezy little emails to their customers saying "Sorry about that, and watch out for viruses in emails from people you don't know. It is possible that you may receive some spam email messages. We apologize for any inconvenience." I would call this more than "inconvenient" but that's just me.

Besides making a note to stay away from Epsilon (but good luck with that-- they are the world's largest email marketing service, sending out more than FORTY BILLION EMAILS PER YEAR, for over 2500 companies), there's not much you can do, especially considering we don't know what happened. Epsilon put out a one-paragraph press release on April 1st, 2011 (no fooling) that's a little on the vague side. They don't say when the security breach happened, they don't say how many email addresses were obtained, they don't say whether it was an inside job. They DO say that apart from names and email addresses "no other personal identifiable information associated with those names was at risk."Somehow I don't find this very reassuring. If we had asked them last Thursday they would have said that NONE of the information they store was at risk at all. And they would have been wrong about that. So maybe they're wrong this time too.

It would be a good idea to be extra suspicious of emails that appear to come from a bank or a retailer asking you to "verify your information by replying to this email with name, address, social security number, and PIN." Such emails are phony and you shouldn't reply at all. If you get an email asking for that kind of information just throw it away. You should have been doing that all along but if you haven't been, start now.

iPhone as Magnifying Glass

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-03-31T16:03:19-07:00

I don't know why everything seems to be printed in itsy-bitsy type these days but armed with my trusty iPhone I can read almost anything. It's ridiculously easy. I don't know why it took so long to come up with the idea but it did.

All you do is use the iPhone's camera app to take a picture of the tiny type. Then, tap the icon at lower left to display the picture. Then, "un-pinch" to enlarge. Problem solved.

For example: I needed to get some numbers from the back of an Apple Time Capsule. I took the picture on the left, then stretched it until it was big enough to read. See for yourself.

This works with an iPad 2 also though not as well since the camera on the iPad 2 isn't very good.

You can of course aim the camera at the tiny type, then touch the screen, then use the zoom controls to zoom in without taking a picture but that doesn't work as well because it takes two hands and you don't end up with anything permanent. If you need to take another look you have to return to wherever it was that you didn't take the picture. Take the picture to begin with and have it forever.

Scammers Everywhere, and They Know Where You Live

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-03-27T20:08:57-07:00

I was in Round Rock, Texas last weekend and while there I used my MacBook to bring up the Los Angeles Times website. I noticed a couple of ads that mentioned a "Round Rock Mom" and wouldn't have thought much of it except that the "Round Rock Mom" looked familiar. The reason she looked familiar is that I'd seen her picture many times before while reading the Times from home in Santa Monica-- but, in those cases, she was cast as "Santa Monica Mom." Hmm.

Here's how it looked when viewed in Texas...

And here's how it looked when viewed in Santa Monica.

I suppose they could be twins. But probably not.

I clicked the links and shockingly they wanted to sell me something. Here's where they took me:

After clicking "Round Rock Mom"

After clicking "Santa Monica Mom"

I did appreciate that they personalized things to my location either way. "EXPOSED" indeed. Scam-o-matic.

But wait, therer's more! While in Texas, I accidentally clicked an ad and found myself looking at a web page telling me that I (me!) was "Today's Lucky Texas Visitor!" See, it says so right on the web page.

I wondered a little bit about the snowflakes and the "Holiday" reference at the top, but for a free Apple iPad 2 who's complaining? I scrolled down a bit and saw a list of previous winners, and what do you know, someone in my own neighborhood was on the list. I didn't know who she was but it had her name and picture and it said "Round Rock, TX" and that "proved" it.

Just for laughs I connected to my machine in Santa Monica and brought up the same web page, clicked the ad, and up came the same web page. Except this time I was the Lucky California Visitor! What are the odds of THAT! I had visions of me carrying an iPad 2 in each arm, looking like Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments. (Please click the link.)

I scrolled down a bit to see the people who'd won before, and what a surprise to see our new friend Jennifer Layton-- except this time she lived in Santa Monica.

After seeing Jennifer in two places, I couldn't believe it either.

Turns out it is not very hard for a website programmer to determine the general location of your computer, based on your IP address. Try this link and see if it "knows" where you are. I'll bet it's pretty close. Eye-opening.

The point is, don't fall for the old "Gee, there's a picture of someone from my neighborhood, that makes this offer so much more believable" trick. It's probably faked. If you want $84 per hour, or an iPad 2, you're going to have to earn it. Sorry to be the one to tell you.

How to Get an iPad 2

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-03-18T18:34:26-07:00

A friend sent me a link to a New York Times article called "How to Procure an iPad 2." The article was very interesting and made it sound like you could get one at Best Buy with minimal effort. Unfortunately, the article is wrong. So, read it if you want, but with a grain of salt. And like your Mom told you, don't believe everything you read. Even in the New York Times. Shocking.

I will bet you, however, that your Mom NEVER told you not to believe what you read here on The Boyce Blog. Your Mom was right. You can trust The Boyce Blog.

I did some legwork today, visiting the Best Buy in West Los Angeles in person, and calling Best Buy in Culver City, California on the phone. I got the same story both places and they told me that I would get the same story no matter where I went. The story from Best Buy is this:

They do have a waiting list for iPad 2s, but they are not adding names to it any longer.
The waiting list was available ONLY for people who came into the store, not over the phone.
Getting on the list meant making a $100 deposit.
A person on the waiting list could buy a single iPad 2.
The waiting list was closed three days ago.
Best Buy has not received an iPad 2 shipment since opening day, Friday March 11th.
The waiting list is several times larger than the initial shipment of iPad 2s, so it's going to be a while before they get through the list.

Well now. That's quite a bit different than what the New York Times reported. Based on the above, it appears that there is no sense in going to Best Buy for an iPad 2 anytime soon. No sense in camping out overnight to be the first one in the store, because any iPad 2s Best Buy receives will be going to people on the waiting list. No sense in calling them up to get on the waiting list because the waiting list is closed (and they wouldn't do it over the phone even if they still were taking names). No sense trying to order online because they aren't taking iPad 2 orders online at this time.

So, cross Best Buy off your list of places to go to get an iPad 2 before everyone else. You can't buy what Best Buy doesn't have. Eventually, they'll have them. But they don't have them now. UPDATE: they have them now (March 23rd, 2011). Use the Best Buy iPad 2 Availability Checker (thanks, www.obamapacman.com).

Target doesn't have any either. They haven't seen any since opening day, same as Best Buy. However, you can check Target's iPad 2 inventory. Don't get excited, you probably won't find an iPad 2 anywhere near you. But it is interesting to see how many Target stores there are.

Apple Stores might have some but they're gone in minutes. A week after launch, the lines are still longer than the supply. So, unless you're willing to be in line before 5 AM, don't plan on getting an iPad 2 at an Apple Store. At least not now.

It comes down to this: if you're wondering how to get an iPad 2, your best answer right now is "order one through Apple's online store." Do it that way and get the back engraved for free. Order the thing today and you can expect it in 4 to 5 weeks. I know, that's a long time, but do it that way and you can quit chasing the thing, letting you move on to other stuff, like figuring out which 3G wireless plan to buy.

Note: as long as you're here, take a look around. I've posted hundreds of Mac and iPhone and iPad tips and hints and shortcuts. Click this link to go to the home page.

Quick Fix for a Facebook Security Issue

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-03-18T10:49:40-07:00

Facebook has a nice little security hole, and someone has already done a "proof of concept" hack to show that it's easy to get into someone's account. The hack involves "listening" as people log into Facebook using an open network (such as what you'd find at Starbucks) and capturing names and passwords. Once that happens, the hacker has all he needs. He can log in with the captured Facebook credentials and post things and comment on things and delete things and generally cause a bunch of trouble. You don't want that.

Unfortunately, the person who developed the hack released it into the wilds, making it possible for anyone with a little knowledge to hack into other people's Facebook accounts. Fortunately, it's really easy to prevent anyone from hacking into YOUR Facebook account, and double-fortunately, here I am to tell you how.

First, go to the Account menu and choose "Account Settings."

Second, click "Change" in the Account Security section.

Third, make your settings look like this and click Save .

The most important one is "Secure Browsing (https)". The others are optional, but it would be interesting to know that someone has logged into your account, right when it happens, wouldn't it? If that does happen, make another trip to this same Account Security section in Facebook's settings and if it's not authorized, you can click an "End Activity" button to turn off that machine's access. Don't be alarmed (like I was) if you see something like this in Facebook's settings:

When I saw this, I thought "Whoa, who was accessing my account in Anaheim at 4:36 PM?" Turns out the location is VERY approximate. If you hover your mouse over the location, they show the IP address for that location, and it turns out they were off by a few miles. The IP they reported was my own. (You can determine your own IP by going to www.whatismyip.net).

Changing this one security setting takes less time to do than to read about. Do it now and you're all set.

VIDEO TIP: How to Customize the Mail Toolbar

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-03-17T00:11:38-07:00

Mail is even better when you customize the toolbar to be just the way you like it.. This video tutorial-- less than two minutes long-- will show you how it's done. Click the picture to start the show.

UPDATE: I should have mentioned that you can customize the main Mail viewer window's toolbar AND the individual Mail message window's toolbar-- changes in one do not affect the other. So, customize Mail's main viewer window's toolbar, then double-click a message to open up a message window and modify that toolbar also. If you want.

Best Buy's iPad 2 Availability Checker

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-03-13T12:29:04-07:00

Best Buy sells the iPad 2, and they have a handy online iPad 2 availability checker where you can tell it which iPad 2 you want, enter a zip code, and find out whether Best Buy has it in stock at a store near you. They are not currently accepting iPad 2 orders online so if they do have it in stock you'll have to RUN to the store and get one (because you can't reserve it online). Still, it beats driving all over the place and making a bunch of phone calls.

UPDATE: Best Buy has changed their site a tiny bit. Now, when you follow the link above, you get to a page where they show the iPads, but then you have to click on a link to check availability for that particular unit. Of course, they don't have any iPad 2s, in any flavor, when I check, but who knows, you might get lucky. Here's a picture of what you're looking for. Bonus: click anywhere on the picture to see Best Buy's complete selection of iPad 2s. From there, click those "Check Shipping & Availability" links.

UPDATE 2: Target also sells the iPad 2, but it appears that Best Buy is a better bet. I went to a big Target in Los Angeles and they told me they'd received FIVE iPad 2 units-- not even one of each Wi-Fi flavor-- on launch day, and nothing since. They have no idea when they'll get more.

UPDATE 3: Best Buy has them now (March 23rd, 2011). Use the Best Buy iPad 2 Availability Checker (thanks, www.obamapacman.com).

Note: as long as you're here, take a look around. I've posted hundreds of Mac and iPhone and iPad tips and hints and shortcuts here. Click this link to go to the home page.

QR Codes: the Next Big Thing

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-03-11T21:02:50-08:00

This is a business card.

So is the black-and-white mess below. And the messy one is easier to put into your address book. That's because it's a "QR code," and it turns out it contains all of the information in the card above-- and you can read it using your iPhone's camera and add it to your address book without doing any typing at all. I'm telling you, it's the Next Big Thing.

The QR code format is rather broad. Storing name, address, and phone numbers is only the beginning. You can use a code, and your iPhone's camera, to generate a pre-addressed email, or to go straight to a website-- no typing required. And lest you think that this is an iPhone-only thing, it's not. Just about any decent smartphone can do it.

Obviously, there are two aspects to these QR codes: making them, and using them. I'll tell you how to do both.

First, let's make a QR code. You can search the internet for a QR code generator, but I've already done it and the best QR code generator is by Kerem Erkan, in the beautiful country of Turkey. Click the link and make yourself a code. It's fun. Here's one I made, using a Code Action of "Browse to a Website" (the simplest kind, but have a look at the other options in that Code Action menu).

In a minute, after I show you how to read a code, you can figure out which site I chose. When you create your own QR code, type in the desired web site URL, and then click the Generate Code button at the bottom. You'll get a nice big code-- click on it and drag it to your desktop for later use.

Now, let's figure out how to read these codes. What you need is an iPhone app called Qrafter. (There are nearly 200 iPhone apps that can read a QR code, but once again I've done the work for you and found the needle in the haystack. You want Qrafter.) It's free, so you have nothing to lose. Here's a bigger button to click.

While you're at the iTunes Store, have a look at Qrafter's screenshots.The main screen is shown below, and it could hardly be simpler. Just touch the giant "Scan with Camera" button, aim your iPhone's camera at a QR code, and in a second or two the image is recognized and decoded. It feels like magic, even after you've done it hundreds of times.

You can experiment with the Settings (at the bottom of the screen) yourself, but I recommend the options shown below. You'll also want to click the "Info" button at Qrafter's bottom right to learn a little more about the program.

Now let's go back and scan the codes we saw earlier.

Touch the "Scan with Camera" button and aim it at the first code... and you get all of my contact info, perfectly done, no mistakes. Scroll down a bit and you'll see a button to "Create New Contact" and another to "Add to Existing Contact." Touch the one that's right for you and all of my name/address/phone number info is added to your Contacts app. Easy, fast, and error-free.

Try the second code-- the one I generated with a "Browse to Website" Code Action. If your settings are like mine, you'll go straight to the website I chose. If not, you'll have to touch a button to "Open URL in Safari." Try it and see (and then change your settings so that "Scan and Go" is ON). Try the code you made and dragged to your desktop-- I think it will work.

You can use Qrafter to scan QR codes in magazines and other places too-- who knows what you've been missing.

So... now you know how to create a QR code, and you know how to read them. All you need to do now is figure out how to use them. Here's one way: I've printed up stickers with my business card info on them and stuck them to the backs of my business cards. Next time I have cards printed, I'll include the code, but the stickers work great.

Here are some other ideas:

Make a "Browse to Website" QR code with your blog or website address on it, and put it on your business cards or stationery.
Make a "Google Maps" QR code showing your business' location and put it on all of your company materials.
Make a "Free Formatted Text" QR code with additional information about a product or service, or a list of ingredients for a dish at a restaurant-- or send "secret" messages to your friends (secret, that is, until everyone catches on to QR codes).

QR codes are easy to make, easy to read, and they don't make typographical errors. They take you from print (the code) to the web, or to email, or to a phone call, or to a text message-- all with a simple scan of a code. Fast, accurate, easy, and bridging the print and online worlds-- that's a pretty tall order, but QR codes deliver, and that's why I'm convinced that QR codes are the Next Big Thing.

UPDATES: The "QR" in "QR Code" stands for "Quick Response." And, it turns out that you can store over 4000 characters in a QR code. That's almost enough to store the text of this particular blog post. Find out more about QR codes using this link to Wikipedia. Very interesting stuff.

iPad Guided Tours

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-03-11T00:32:24-08:00

If you have an iPad, or think you might want an iPad, you ought to have a look at these videos. As usual, Apple's made it look easy (and with the iPad, it really IS easy). Watch even one of these short videos and you'll think "I could use one of these things! I could do what they're doing! It looks like fun! I want an iPad!" And you'll wish you had time to watch every one of the videos.

It is interesting to compare these to Motorola's XOOM tablet videos-- watch one of those and you think "This is just a commercial!"

(It is also interesting to compare the experience of going to www.apple.com with the experience of going to www.motorola.com. I know, I know: totally different companies--- but geez, Motorola, why make it so hard to get started? Do I want "Motorola Mobility", which "delivers personalized information to meet the needs of consumers both in the home and on the go", or "Motorola Solutions", which "provides business and mission-critical communications products and services to enterprises and governments"? Just for laughs, try entering "Xoom" in the Motorola Solutions search box. I think you'll shake your head in disgust. What a horrible experience.)

Google Instant Previews

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-03-08T19:05:21-08:00

It's not easy keeping up with Google-- they make changes all the time, and they almost never make a big deal about them. Google Instant Previews is a good example of that. What it does is show you "Instant Previews" (hmmm!) of each website in search results, which makes it a little easier, sometimes, to figure out which website you want to go to.

For example, here I've searched for Barbecue Recipes, and as expected I found a LOT of results: approximately thirteen million, four hundred thousand. I don't want to plow through thirteen million four hundred thousand websites. I don't even want to plow through the ten on the first page. I want, somehow, to find the right one on the first try. I'm looking for one with a nice layout, with pictures as well as text. Google Instant Previews can help.

Start by clicking the magnifying glass to the right of any item in the search results. I've drawn a big red arrow here to show you where to look.

When you click on a magnifying glass you get a preview of that site, and since what you've really done is turn Instant Previews on for everything on the page, all you have to do now is hover over each item in the listing. No need to click another magnifying glass-- in fact, if you do, you'll turn the feature off.

Here I've just turned the feature on, showing a preview of the second site in my search results.

Now I can roll the mouse around and hover over other items in the search results, giving me a quick idea of what each site looks like.

I don't like the looks of this site with the green sidebar-- no pictures, at least not on the first page. Based on the previews, I could make a decision about which site to go to, saving me a little time. I know, I know: don't judge a book by its cover. But I'm busy. Seeing the cover helps.

You can watch a nice video by Google Themselves that explains it a little further. Turns out Google Instant Previews is even handier on the iPhone. Check it out. Here's the link.

Safari Shortcuts That I Just Learned

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-03-07T23:13:41-08:00

I did a little experimenting today and found some new (to me) Safari shortcuts. Maybe they are new to you too. Try 'em out and see how they work for you.

Option-Down Arrow: scrolls down one windowful. Fantastic. No more "click click click" to scroll down.
Option-Up Arrow: scrolls up one windowful. Duh.

(Yes, the above do exactly what "Page Down" and "Page Up" do... but if you're on a laptop, you don't have Page Down and Page Up keys. And, even if you do have Page Down and Page Up keys, the Option-Arrow shortcuts may be easier to hit. You don't have to reach as far, that's one plus.)

Space bar: scrolls down one windowful. Same as Option-Down Arrow but easier to do.
Shift-Space bar: scrolls up one windowful. Same as Option-Up Arrow.

Command-Down Arrow: scroll to the bottom.
Command-Up Arrow: scroll to the top. This one you'll use a lot.

(Yes, these functions are handled nicely by "End" and "Home" but I kinda like Command-Down Arrow and Command-Up Arrow better. Command is not the same as Control, so be sure you're using the Command key (on either side of the space bar) before you give up on this one.)

Control-Down Arrow and Control-Up Arrow: same as Option-Down Arrow and Option-Up Arrow. Nice to have options but the Space bar method is the best choice.

Not Really a Shortcut, but Impressive Anyway:
Select some text on a web page. Then, go to Safari's Edit menu, slide down to Speech, and slide over and choose "Start Speaking." Your Mac will read the selected text out loud. Advice: don't select a lot of text the first time you do this. (There is a way to stop it-- Edit/Speech/Stop Speaking.)

Not New to Me, But Too Cool and Useful to Not Include:
Here's the scene: you want to download something from a website. You click a button that says "Download Now" or something like that. The download begins. And then you never find the thing you downloaded. Sound familiar?

Your problem is solved quickly and easily using the "Downloads" window in Safari. If the Downloads window is not showing, go to Safari's Window menu and choose "Downloads". It's a toggle, so if you choose "Downloads" from the Window menu while the Downloads window is showing, the window will close. FYI.

Notice the magnifying glass buttons at the right in the Downloads window. I've circled one in red below. If you click one of those magnifying glass buttons the corresponding file will be revealed in the Finder! That's way better than you shoving Safari out of the way, opening up a window in the Finder, and climbing around trying to locate the thing. Even if you know where downloads go, this is still the fastest way to find the file you want. Give this a try and you'll never go back to the dig-around-in-your-hard-drive method.

VIDEO TIP: Safari Bookmark Collections and Tabs

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-03-03T23:17:39-08:00

Click the picture and learn how to use Bookmark Collections and Tabs in Safari to speed up your web browsing. Guaranteed to save you time. Your friend(s) will be impressed.

iPad 2 Unveiled

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-03-02T20:53:19-08:00

No better way to find out about the iPad 2 than to watch Steve Jobs introduce it himself. Watch the unveiling. You'll want an iPad 2 before the video's anywhere near finished. Worth watching to the end though so you can hear Jonathan Ive, Apple's Senior Vice President of Design, say "Aluminium" (1:04:15).

Certainly nice to see Mr. Jobs. I hope he's feeling better.

Nifty Time-Saving iPhone Tip

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-02-27T01:04:17-08:00

Ever get an email on your iPhone, and for whatever reason you would rather call the person than email him back? You can do it in a couple of taps. For example, let's say you get this email on your iPhone.

If the email contains a phone number, like this one does, just touch it. A little window will pop up:

Touch "Call" and you're done. That's pretty easy: the phone number is in the email, you touch it and tap Call. A touch and a tap.

(So... if you want to make it easy for people to call you, add your phone number to your email signature. On an iPhone, you do it in Settings/Mail, Contacts, Calendars/Signature. On a Mac using Mail, it's the Mail menu, then Preferences..., then Signatures. Gmail people: click Settings at the top and look around.)

But... what if the phone number isn't in the email? Do you have to look it up? Of course the answer is "no, not if you finish reading this blog entry." All you have to do is touch the sender's name, up at the top of the message. It's outlined in red here so you know what I'm talking about.

If the sender is in your address book you'll be taken to his contact information, and from there you can touch whichever phone number you want to call him at.

Touch any phone number and it dials. Nice. So that's just a touch and a tap too.

You can scroll down a bit and see the rest of the sender's information, like so:

Touch an address and you'll see it on a map. Touch the web page address and it opens in Safari.

Scroll to the bottom and you find some handy buttons:

All in all, pretty handy stuff, especially if you're using your phone while driving, even though you would never do that. (A great place to never do that is San Jose, CA but if you do you might get to meet my brother, State Traffic Officer Spencer Boyce of the California Highway Patrol.)

Note: if you don't have the sender in your address book, touching the sender's name will take you to a screen where you can put him into it. It sounds like a lot of work but a good address book on the iPhone will pay off over and over for you. So don't cut corners on the address book. Make it as complete as you can.

Retailmenot.com: Money-Saving Website

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-02-19T13:46:52-08:00

Ever buy something online, and right at the end you see a little box that says "Enter your promotional code here"? Ever wonder how you're supposed to get those codes? I get them from Retailmenot.com. Retailmenot.com provides discount codes for use on other websites (and printable coupons for use in stores, and news about special offers). I've made checking with Retailmenot.com a habit-- every time I'm about to buy something online, I open another browser window (File/New Window, or Command-N) and see if Retailmenot can help me save some money. A lot of the time they can.

It's an easy website to figure out. Here's what it looks like (note: it's better on a Mac than on an iPhone):

You can search for a store-- here's what happens when you start typing "Jcpenney":

Rather handy. When you see the store you're interested in you can click on it and boom, you're shown a list of discounts and special offers for that store. Here's part of what that looks like (it's a long list).

Retailmenot is pretty clever. They'll show you deals for other stores and online merchants that are similar to the one you've chosen. And sometimes they just come out of the blue with a great idea. Here's one they recently showed me from Amazon:

Who knew? That's a great deal. Thanks, Retailmenot.com!

VIDEO Tip: Safari Bookmarks

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-02-14T21:02:06-08:00

Back by popular demand, it's VIDEO. A picture is worth a thousand words, so a movie should be worth even more. Let's test that theory out.

A couple of weeks ago we had a contest about Safari Bookmarks and cool ways to make them. Nine-year old Zach won it with the first tip in this video. The second tip is provided at no additional charge, though Zach probably already knows all about it.

Have a look. Click the picture below to start the show.

NOTE: the first tip in this video also works in Firefox. The second one does not. Use Safari.

Instant Access to Websites with your iPhone and iPad

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-02-10T20:06:12-08:00

The iPhone's Safari browser is nice and quick. What isn't quick is typing in a web address-- it takes longer to tap-tap-tap http://christianboyce.blogspot.com into Safari than it does to read the articles when you get there. There are ways to make getting to websites in Safari quicker; here are two of the best. The second one's better than the first but read the whole thing anyway.

First, use the bookmarks. The icon looks like an open book, at the bottom of the Safari app (circled in red below). Tap that button and you're on your way. Of course, you have to get bookmarks into your iPhone. The easy way: set them up in Safari on your Mac, check the box in iTunes to synchronize bookmarks, and sync. Or add them via the Share button on your iPhone (keep reading).

Having bookmarks makes using Safari on your iPhone a lot easier-- just tap Safari, tap the Bookmarks button, scroll around through the folders and eventually you find what you're looking for and then you tap that. Whew. Not easy enough.

Here's the right way: add icons for your favorite websites to your Home screen so you can load them in one tap. Actually, make that "Home screens." As long as there is room for another icon on one of your Home screens this tip works. When there's no more room, you can't use this tip.

So how do we do it? Easily, that's how:

1. Go to the web page that you want to make an icon for.
2. Tap the "Share" button (just to the left of the bookmarks button). You'll get this screen:

You want "Add to Home Screen." Choose that, and you get this:

Like they say-- "An icon will be added to your home screen so you can quickly access this web site." Adjust the name as desired (more on that later) and tap the blue "Add" button. That's it. Here's how your Home screen might look after adding this site:

One tap on that red-circled icon and you go straight to the web page. Pretty neat, but not actually pretty. There's room for improvement. Two tricks: first, before adding the icon to the Home screen, stretch the web page until you're looking at exactly what you want the icon to look like. Here's an example, using http://christianboyce.blogspot.com:

I know this guy.

NOW when you hit that "Share" button your icon will look pretty good, depending of course on who's looking. Mom likes this one.

The second thing to do is to keep the name short. As we saw above, "The Boyce Blog" turned into "The Bo... Blog"-- sounds a little stinky. Shorten up the name and you'll end up with something that fits, as seen below.

Next time you want to go to the Boyce Blog, poke that icon in the nose and the page will come right up.

(Bonus: to get rid of an icon just touch it and hold it until it wiggles. Then tap the circled X in the top left corner of the icon. Double-bonus: this whole thing works for iPads too.)

iPhone's Greatest Hits

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-02-08T20:15:32-08:00

To my new-to-the-iPhone Verizon-subscribing friends, first of all WELCOME. We are glad you're here. The party is three and a half years old and it's just getting started. You're late, but in six months no one will remember.

Second, you can learn a lot about the iPhone in three and a half years. But, lucky for you, I already learned it, and I'm going to boil it down to the things I think you will really like about the iPhone. Here, then, are the iPhone's Greatest Hits.

Use the Clock app. It's terrific. Use it as an alarm clock that goes off at 6 AM on weekdays and at 8 AM (or not at all) on weekends. Set a second alarm to remind you that it's garbage day tomorrow. Set another one that goes off at midnight to wake you up in case you fell asleep at your desk writing blog entries.

Did I mention "use the Clock app"? It's also a handy timer. Set it for ten minutes even though you never forget that you have biscuits in the oven.

Get your Apple Address Book up to date and sync it with your iPhone. With good info in your iPhone's contacts database you can do a whole lot of stuff in just a couple of taps. For example, touch a person's phone number to dial it. Touch a person's email address to create an already-addressed message. Touch a person's home or work address to see it on a map. (And once you've seen the address on the map, tap it and get driving directions to or from.)

Keep the screen as dim as you can stand because the brighter it is, the faster the battery drains. And it might drain so fast that you run out of juice before the day is through. (Bonus hint: get a cigarette lighter charger thingy and keep your iPhone plugged in when you drive.) Keep Bluetooth turned off too, unless you need it. And definitely turn off that "Ask to join networks" option. It will drive you nuts. Home/Settings/Wi-Fi/Ask to Join Networks OFF.

When you're scrolled way down, like maybe in the Zs in your iPhone contacts, touch the time (top of screen) to scroll back to the top. Bonus: it gives you a search box so you can find people by typing a few letters of their names. This works in a lot of places-- Mail, Safari, Stocks, Messages, and more. This is a standard iPhone feature, so expect it to work everywhere.

Give the Calendar's List view a try. It's really the best way to go.

Explore the App Store. On your Mac, start iTunes, click on "iTunes Store," and have a look around (or click this link). On the iPhone, touch the App Store icon. There are zillions of iPhone apps and a lot of them are free. You'll be amazed at what's out there.

Get to know the Camera app. HINT: it takes pictures when your finger comes off of the button, not when you touch it. That way you're less likely to shake it. HINT: when composing a picture, touch the screen to show what you want to focus on (and set exposure for). HINT: when composing a picture, touch the screen to get a little zoom slider. It's not a "real" zoom but hey, it's free. HINT: when you take a picture, tap the little square thumbnail at bottom left to see what you took. Touch the "Share" icon (box with curvy arrow) to get all kinds of options (email the photo, assign the photo to one of your contacts, use as wallpaper, etc.). HINT: if the "Share" icon isn't showing gently tap the picture. The icon will come back.

Get to know the Maps app. Touch the arrow at bottom left to see your current location on the map. Touch the turning page icon at bottom right to see options to show and hide traffic and to choose between a map view, satellite view, and a hybrid view. Touch a "pin" on the map to get more info about that location, including (often) a photographic Street View, phone numbers, and driving directions.

Finally, read what I've written about iPhones to date here on the Boyce Blog. Every post is categorized so all you have to do is click where it says "iPhone" under the By Category heading at the left. This one time only I will provide a link that does the same thing-- just click here. You can search for specific topics using the search box, also at the left (click here if you don't see a search box). It's all free, and it won't take three and a half years. As always, send me your questions and if they're of general interest I'll answer them here on the blog.

By the way, Verizon has some good iPhone information on their site, and I'm as shocked as anyone. Here is the link. I'd read all of it if I were you.

Introducing "The Daily"

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-02-02T20:12:36-08:00

From the press release:

New York, NY, February 2, 2011 – Today Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of News Corporation, unveiled The Daily -- the industry’s first national daily news publication created from the ground up for iPad.

“New times demand new journalism,” said Mr. Murdoch. “So we built The Daily completely from scratch -- on the most innovative device to come about in my time -- the iPad."

“The magic of great newspapers -- and great blogs -- lies in their serendipity and surprise, and the touch of a good editor,” continued Mr. Murdoch. “We’re going to bring that magic to The Daily -- to inform people, to make them think, to help them engage in the great issues of the day. And as we continue to improve and evolve, we are going to use the best in new technology to push the boundaries of reporting.”

The Daily’s unique mix of text, photography, audio, video, information graphics, touch interactivity and real-time data and social feeds provides its editors with the ability to decide not only which stories are most important -- but also the best format to deliver these stories to their readers.

You can download The Daily from the App Store via this link. It's free. But not completely (and of course you have to have an iPad-- there is no version for the iPhone). When you subscribe to The Daily they send you a new edition every day, and it costs you roughly 14 cents per day (exactly 99 cents per week). If you pay for a year up front it's $39.99 for the year, or roughly 11 cents per day, or $3.33 per month. Compare that to what it costs to subscribe to a newspaper on a Kindle:

• New York Times, $19.99 per month
• The Wall Street Journal, $14.99 per month
• The Los Angeles Times, $9.99 per month
• The Austin American-Statesman, $5.99 per month
• The Boston Globe, $14.99 per month
• Chicago Tribune, $9.99 per month
• The Denver Post, $5.99 per month
• The Houston Chronicle, $5.99 per month

There are some advantages to the Kindle offerings (for starters, you can read them on a Kindle, and that's a GREAT way to read stuff), but they're not in color (The Daily is), they're not loaded with movies and sounds and interactive elements (The Daily is), and they're not designed to be read on an iPad (The Daily is). Of course, there's that little matter of "content" and it will be interesting to see whether The Daily turns out to be as polarizing as Murdoch's Fox News Channel (note to Mr. Murdoch: please, no).

They're offering a 14-day trial so if you have an iPad you may as well check it out. The Daily includes daily crossword and sudoku puzzles, by the way, and though I haven't tried it out I am guessing that doing them on the iPad will be a neat experience (literally).

Whether The Daily turns out to be great journalism or not, it's a step in the modern direction as far as presentation and delivery, and while you can't wrap a fish in it I think the modern way is going to win. I am guessing that a LOT of people in the "real" newspaper business will be watching The Daily very closely-- and if it's a success you can bet that we'll see a bunch of publications putting themselves onto the iPad too. I'm thinking that "newspaper delivery boy" may not be a really good career choice in the not-too-distant future.

You can read the official press release here. You can go to The Daily's website here. Lots of good stuff in both places.

Macworld Round-Up: Stuff I Bought

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-01-31T18:07:36-08:00

I'm back from Macworld 2011 and as usual, it was a lot of fun. Also as usual, it was a lot of walking but this year I wore tennis shoes instead of cowboy boots. It took a while but I'm getting smarter.

There was plenty of cool stuff to look and play with and you can read about some of it here, here, and here. Rather than describe every interesting item I saw at Macworld I'm going to tell you about the things that I bought. You know I had to like it if I spent my own money on it. Here, then, is what I bought.

Camera Plus Pro (iPhone app for cropping/fixing/enhancing photos), $1.99. Share your modified pictures via email, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and Picassa with just a couple of taps. You get a lot for your money with this one.

Here's a picture I took with my iPhone 4.

Here's how it looks after cropping and sharpening and a little "warming" using Camera Plus Pro. I could touch that triangle in the lower left-hand corner and post it to Facebook in a jiffy if I wanted to.

Here's what the interface looks like for cropping. Easy enough to do.

L5 Remote (iPhone app combined with an infrared transmitter), free app, $49.99 for the transmitter. Use your iPhone as a custom universal remote control for TV and stereo. Create multiple remotes (swipe to move between them) for different rooms. I can make one for controlling Mom's TV and another for controlling my own stuff.

Here's an example of what you can do. Note the buttons at the bottom for various stations-- Tennis, Golf, ESPN and ESPN2, etc. Set those up and you'll never have to remember that ESPN is channel 417 and ESPN2 is channel 429.

Two things I'm going to buy soon:

Kensington "SoundWave" Sound-Amplifying iPhone mount (for use in the car-- attaches to windshield with a suction cup or to an air vent with a clamp), $29.99 with free shipping (via Amazon.com). I've decided to use my iPhone as a GPS, but I need to attach it to the car somehow. This Kensington device is the ticket. The part that makes this thing special is the sound from the iPhone comes out of its bottom speakers and is routed through some tubes into a couple of flared-out openings, and it makes the sound louder-- a very important thing when using a GPS in the car. Without some sort of amplification the iPhone isn't loud enough to be heard in the car. This holder's design approximately doubles the iPhone's volume. And you don't have to take the iPhone's case off to make it fit.

IRIS "Scan Anywhere 2" scanner. List price is $199 but the people at the IRIS booth told me it will go on sale at Frys.com with a $75 mail-in rebate starting February 1st. They expect the price to get down to about $120 after the rebate. This scanner is about as big as a box of aluminum foil so it is very portable. It connects to your Mac with a USB cable and you can shove paper into it a sheet at a time and it scans just fine. The really big news: you can do it even without being connected to your Mac. The Scan Anywhere 2 has rechargeable batteries in it, and it has built-in memory, and it has an SD (camera card) slot, AND it has a USB port for attaching a USB "thumb" drive. So, you can use the Scan Anywhere 2 on an airplane, or in a hotel room, or really just about anywhere. Then, after doing your scans, you connect it to your Mac (or pull the SD card or USB stick and connect that to your Mac), and it mounts on the desktop like an everyday drive, and from there you can drag the scans to wherever you want to drag them. Very neat, especially at $120.

Here's a picture.

Macworld Expo This Week!

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-01-26T10:02:30-08:00

Macworld 2011 begins today in San Francisco. Historically the largest annual Mac-related love fest held near a large body of water, Macworld has evolved over the years to a smaller show, with iPods and iPhones pushing Macs aside. However, it is still held near the same large body of water.

I think I've been to every Macworld Expo, which means something like 25 of them, which also means that I'm not 22 anymore. Hmm. I expect to see a lot of iPad-related things at the show, but one thing about Macworld Expo is you really can't predict it. One other thing about Macworld Expo is you can "do" Macworld in thirty minutes by listening to my Macworld Report on KPFK-FM radio this Saturday at 10:30 AM. Click here to listen (or tune to 90.7 FM in Los Angeles). Not now, silly-- Saturday at 10:30 AM. Of course it is OK to practice in advance.

UPDATE: Here's a link to a recording of my Macworld report. Twenty-two minutes and 46 seconds.

Safari Bookmark Tips

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-01-24T23:01:26-08:00

You probably think you know all about making bookmarks in Safari, and maybe you do. But, do you know know all about editing bookmarks in Safari? You will in a minute.

Let's start with making a bookmark. Click the plus sign to the left of the URL, or go to the Bookmarks menu and choose "Add Bookmark..." Or use Command-D. There are a couple of other ways too-- more on that later.

Whichever you choose, you'll end up with this box:

So far, so good. Pay attention to where you put the bookmark. For this example, we'll put our new bookmark into the Bookmarks Bar because there's something we want to do with it.

If you're following along your Bookmark Bar will look a lot like this. Except yours may be so full that there is no room for more bookmarks in the Bookmarks Bar. That's OK-- that's the problem we're going to solve here.

By default, Safari names your bookmark using the name of the website. Sometimes it's a little long, and that can crowd the Bookmarks Bar. If you're right on top of things you can shorten the name before you click the "Add" button. But, if you're that good, you'd be writing this blog, not reading it. And nobody's perfect anyway. Here's how you shorten the name of a Bookmark Bar bookmark after the fact.

Step 1: Control-click on the bookmark you want to shorten. You'll get a menu like this:

You want to edit the Name of the bookmark, not the Address. The Name is "The Boyce Blog." The Address is "http://christianboyce.blogspot.com." Totally different.

Here's the box you get. Shorten the name as desired. Maybe just take off the "The." That's Step Two.

What you're doing here is purely cosmetic. The link goes to the exact same address. It just has a shorter name. You can change the name to anything you like. But shorter is better-- that's the whole point here. And there is no Step Three.

OK, that was easy. Now let's do one that REALLY needs shortening: Amazon.

Note: Amazon.com offers your humble blog writer a TINY referral fee when you start your shopping via a specially-coded link. Here's the link-- let's click on it, and then we'll add the bookmark, and this time we'll pay attention when we add the bookmark so the name's not so long.

You can tell that the name is going to be LONG-- you see it at the top of the window. "Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVD & more"-- that's going to take up half the Bookmarks Bar!

(Actually, Safari will shorten the name for you automatically but it's messy. Do it yourself instead.)

Step One is add the bookmark-- click the plus, use the Bookmarks menu, or Command-D. Be sure it goes into the Bookmarks Bar.

Step Two: let's shorten the thing right now, getting it right the first time. Just change it to "amazon" as shown here. Click OK.

So now you have a bookmark/shortcut to Amazon that doesn't take up half your Bookmarks Bar. Yay. And when you use that shortcut it adds a few pennies to the Christian Boyce Coffee Fund. Double-Yay.

Now... let's say you want to rearrange things on that Bookmarks Bar. That's easy-- just click a bookmark and drag it around! Drag left or right and the other bookmarks make room for it. Drag it DOWN and you'll throw it away, with a very nice puff of smoke effect. Make a few bookmarks that you don't really want so you can practice this-- it's fun.

Firefox users: guess what? It works almost exactly the same way for you! Control-click on a bookmark in the Bookmarks Bar and you'll get this menu:

Choose "Properties" as shown here and you'll get this box, which you can edit as desired.

Way back at the beginning of this I told you that there are other ways to add a bookmark. If you know another way, email it to contests@christianboyce.com for a chance at an Official Christian Boyce Economic Stimulus Coffee Cup. Entries must be received by midnight, January 31st 2011.

You want this. Good luck.

Steve Jobs Can't Read Your Mind, but He Doesn't Have To

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-01-19T18:10:46-08:00

Steve Jobs is a lot of things, but he's not a mind-reader. I mention this because article after article tells us:
• "For years, and across a career, knowing what consumers want has been the self-appointed task of Mr. Jobs" (New York Times)
• "Jobs' greatest gift hasn't been for invention as much his uncanny ability to anticipate what people want" (The Associated Press)
• "He is perhaps singular in his ability to know what people want" (The Christian Science Monitor)

I say bah.

Steve Jobs can't tell what people want. But he doesn't have to. He knows what he wants, and he knows that when he shows it to you, you're probably going to say "I want that."

I am willing to bet that you NEVER sat around thinking "You know what I want? I want some raw fish. And wrap it in seaweed. And make it expensive while you're at it." And then someone introduced you to sushi and you said "I want that." You didn't know you wanted it because you hadn't thought of it. And if the person who introduced you to sushi had asked you what you wanted to eat you sure as heck wouldn't have said "raw fish, wrapped in seaweed, very expensive." No chance-- because it would never have crossed your mind.

Henry Ford said "If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said 'a faster horse.'" Steve Jobs has cited that quote a few times, usually when someone asks him why Apple doesn't use focus groups to help design products. More to the point, he's put it this way:

"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."

That makes sense to me. The point is that a lot of us don't really know what we want-- but show us something, and we'll know whether we want that particular thing or not. The hard part is in the imagining. There is nothing magic about this, and it happens in other fields, notably writing (hardly anyone can start with a blank page and put something good on it, but almost everyone can tell whether someone else's writing is worth reading). Steve Jobs has done a great job of putting ideas on paper and turning them into products. And, when he shows them to us-- and that includes me-- we all say "I want one!" Actually, I usually say "I want two!"

Knowing that people WILL want something (once they see it) is different than "knowing what they want." Lucky for us, Henry Ford and Steve Jobs didn't ask us what we want-- because if they had, we'd all be riding a faster horse, and though horses don't have charging ports for iPhones it wouldn't matter because the iPhone wouldn't exist.

Just worry for Steve

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-01-18T08:58:26-08:00

Apple employees were sent this email on Monday January 17th, 2011, announcing that Apple CEO Steve Jobs would be taking a leave of absence to concentrate on his health. That's all we know. We don't know when he's coming back. We don't know that he's coming back for sure. We don't know what's wrong. We don't know anything.

Nevertheless, there are a lot of people saying thinks like "that's the end of Apple, time to sell my stock." I don't agree with that. Yes, Steve Jobs is a special guy. But, he's hand-picked a bunch of special guys to help him run the company, and they've done it before, and they will do it again. Odds are that there's a new iPad coming soon, a new iPhone coming soon, and who knows what else coming soon. These things take a long time to develop and it's very likely that the pipeline is full of products on their way to market.

If the CEO of Christian Boyce and Associates takes a medical leave of absence, you'd be right to worry for the company. In Apple's case, just worry for Steve.

A Little Google Tip

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-01-13T16:17:23-08:00

When you search with Google you sometimes get MORE than what you want, and it clutters up the results. For example, suppose you're looking for Mac help in Austin, Texas. You type in...

Mac help Austin Texas

... and you get a pretty good list. But, there are a lot of repair places listed, and you don't need repairs, you need help. You can make the "repairs" items go away by modifying your search like so (the minus sign is the key):

Mac help Austin Texas -repair

Pretty good. But, it turns out there's a cosmetic company called MAC and they're showing up at the top of your search. Change it again, using the minus sign:

Mac help Austin Texas -repair -cosmetics

That just about does it (though, at this writing, the top item is a help-wanted ad, where someone needs a chicken sitter! I do not make this stuff up).

So, what have we learned? Use the minus sign in front of words that you DON'T want included in the search results. Be sure that the minus is preceded by a space, and that there is no space after the minus. You want this:

-repair

not this:

- repair

Get it?

Bonus Tip: Google doesn't care about the capitalization. So mac help austin texas -repair -cosmetics gives the same results as Mac help Austin Texas -repair -cosmetics. Save yourself a tiny bit of work there.

iPhone on Verizon

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-01-11T14:41:13-08:00

Well well well. As predicted, you will soon be able to use an iPhone on the Verizon Wireless network. You can read all about it on Verizon's website but they leave a few things out. Here's the stuff they don't come right out and say.

Verizon's version of "3G" is not as fast as AT&T's version, so speed-wise AT&T's network is better. When you have coverage.
Verizon's 3G network has more coverage than AT&T's, so coverage-wise Verizon's network is better.
Verizon's network does not allow you to talk on the phone while doing internet-data things such as sending email or browsing websites but AT&T's does.
Verizon has not announced pricing for its iPhone service.

You can't sign up for an iPhone for Verizon until February 3rd, and maybe until the 10th. Depends on whether you have a Verizon account already or not. If you're using an iPhone now (with AT&T, of course) you will have to get another iPhone because the AT&T iPhone won't work on the Verizon network. Different antennas and all that.

I think it boils down to this: if AT&T has good wireless coverage in the places you go the most, you're better off with an AT&T iPhone. Technically AT&T is a better network, with better speed and more modern technology. Of course, AT&T's network is rather overwhelmed in some parts of some cities, so if Verizon works more reliably for you then Verizon's the way to go, even though it 's slower and uses older technology. Do keep in mind that if you want a Verizon iPhone you will have to get in line behind my friend Jeff, who has been waiting since 2007.

New Mac App Store

macman@christianboyce.com — 2011-01-06T22:08:27-08:00

Apple introduced its Mac "App Store" today and I love it. I think you will too. First things first: your Mac has to be on 10.6.6 or later. Here's a link to the 10.6.6 Combo Update. You can't use the update unless you're already on 10.6.something, FYI.

When you install the 10.6.6 Combo Update you get one new application-- the App Store-- placed into your Applications folder, and it's also given space in your Dock. Give the App Store icon a click and you're in-- that's all there is to it.

Here's what you see when you launch the App Store. By the way, I don't like the App Store's icon, even though it's blue. I think they could have done better.

In many ways, the App Store is just like the iPhone's App Store already in place for the iPhone, and it has all of the iPhone's App Store advantages:

Very, VERY easy to purchase an app, 24 hours a day
Apps install themselves-- all you do is choose an app and pay.
Payment handled through your Apple ID, the same one used for iTunes purchases and iPhone app purchases-- no need to supply credit card info again and again.
Well-organized, searchable collection of apps.
Lots of free stuff.

Yes, you can find apps all over the web, but that's part of the problem-- they're all over the web. In the App Store, everything is right there in one place. It's easy to find apps, even if you're not looking for them-- for example, I downloaded the free "Alfred" shown above, and am having a great time playing around with it. I probably would not have stumbled across Alfred if not for the App Store. I am sure that you will find plenty of neat apps that you weren't necessarily looking for when you go to the App Store. It brings a little extra fun to the Mac.

Installing an app purchased from the App Store is completely automatic. When you click the little "free" button under the app (or the one that says "$4.99" or whatever-- you have ONE thing to do, namely enter your Apple ID name and password. The app then flies across your screen in a nice arc, landing in your Dock. That's it! No disk image to deal with, no dragging to the Applications folder, no message about this app being something downloaded from the internet, do you want to use it etc. Could not be simpler.

If you know what you're looking for you can search for it (top right). If you're just looking around, try looking at the free apps, or the paid apps, or the "Staff Recommendations." Or browse by category: Business, Education, Entertainment, GAMES (hi Zach), Photography, Productivity, etc.-- 21 categories in all.

One more thing: in many cases the App Store will save you money. For example, if you want the latest iPhoto, but don't want to spend $49 for the entire iLife suite, you can spend $14.99 and get just iPhoto-- and get it right now. How cool is that?!

Nothing's perfect, and if you want to read about all of the imperfections here's a nice link. I think the good far outweighs the bad, and I'm sure that the App Store will be a big hit with Mac users and software developers alike. I see that the people who programmed Angry Birds for the Mac have the 3rd-highest gross for the day-- and at $4.99 a pop, they must have sold a zillion copies, because the programs at numbers 1 and 2 sold for $79.99 and $14.99, and the program in position 4 sells for $29.99. Which reminds me: parents, encourage your kids to learn how to program for the Mac and iPhone. Someday they might strike it rich. The Angry Birds guys did. Happy New Year indeed.

Sneaky "Google" Scam

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-12-29T00:02:05-08:00

Google called us last week. At least, they said they were Google. Turns out they weren't-- instead, they were crooks, hoping to scam us. Luckily, we were a little suspicious and didn't get suckered into handing over our money but it would have been easy to be fooled. Here's how the scam goes-- make sure it doesn't happen to you!

First, the phone call comes from an Oklahoma area code. Google, of course, is in California. But, when they call and say it's Google calling it is sort of exciting-- "Imagine! Google is calling ME!"-- and you might not pay attention to the area code. Pay attention. They are trying to steal your money.

Then, they will rattle off some information that they say is in your Google listing, such as your company name and address and phone number. They will tell you that part of the information is wrong-- in our case, they told us that our listing showed a home address rather than the business one-- and that it should be corrected in order to make it easier for potential customers to find us via Google. Sounds reasonable. Every business wants more customers, and every business hopes that someone will use Google to search for the business, and find it. The person on the phone says that he will help you correct this information.

Early in the conversation they ask "Are you authorized?" They don't explain what they mean by that. But, they really, REALLY want you to say yes, and that's because they are recording the conversation, and they want to have "yes I am authorized" on tape.

The rest of the conversation is hard to understand. The reason it's hard to understand is that while the phony "Google" person is talking to you he is also playing a tape recording saying something like "You are authorizing XYZ company to optimize your search engine listing and for that you will be charged $70 per month for three months. The charge will appear on your phone bill as XYZ Services Inc." Then, the phony Google person says-- in unison with the recording-- "Do you understand?" If you say "Yes" it goes onto the tape, and the next thing you know they're charging you $70 per month, on your phone bill, and if you try to get your money back they'll have a tape recording of you saying that Yes, you are authorized, and Yes, you understand. Pretty clever. And pretty rotten.

Google has nothing to do with this scam. The bad guys are using Google's name to give them the sound of legitimacy. Tell the people who answer your phones to be suspicious of anyone ""calling from Google (because Google doesn't call), and while they're at it be suspicious of anyone calling from "The Online Yellow Pages" or anything like that. Rather than having a conversation on the phone, ask the caller to send you something written, in the mail. If they're legit they will, but don't wait by the mailbox. Almost all of these "Online Yellow Pages" are scams, so they won't send you anything at all. In that case, consider yourself lucky. Tell your employees, tell your friends-- don't fall for this scam.

Of course there will be another scam tomorrow but at least you're ready for these guys now.

Office 2011: Don't Bother

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-11-24T12:23:28-08:00

Executive Summary: we waited three years for THIS?!
Don't bother buying it, unless you absolutely have to. And, keep in mind that in some ways it's not even as good as the previous version.

Microsoft's Office, like McDonald's hamburger, is very popular without being very good. Thanks to clever bundling arrangements on the PC side, Microsoft's Word, PowerPoint and Excel have become a workplace standard. Until recently, Mac users who wanted to view documents created by PC users were almost forced to purchase a copy of Microsoft Office for the Mac, even if they really didn't want to use it themselves. (There are some excellent non-Microsoft options available for Mac users today, notably Apple's iWork, a word processor, presentation program, and spreadsheet that are a pleasure to use. And they can open Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents just fine.)

Microsoft was not particularly quick to get this version out the door-- the previous version was released in 2008-- but it still feels rushed, and frankly it's a huge disappointment. Microsoft's Mac Business Unit, which had suffered under previous "leadership," was under new management, and Office 2011 was supposed to be the product that showed that Microsoft "gets it." Based on my experience with Office 2011, which I bought with my own $200, it's plain that Microsoft still doesn't get it. They don't get what's important to Mac users, they don't get how to make software that's a pleasure to use, they don't get that the out-of-the-box experience matters.

They also don't get that iPhone users would like to sync their calendars, carrying with them the events and appointments that they've entered into Office 2011's Outlook. Well, maybe they do get that. But they didn't provide that feature. Yes, that's right-- if you're going to use the calendar in Outlook from Office 2011, you won't be able to sync it to your iPhone. Not. At. All. From what I hear, the iPhone is fairly popular with Mac users-- what was Microsoft thinking?

If they made a word processor that couldn't do the letter "Z" it would not be more surprising than this lack of calendar synching. Apple's been doing calendar synching through Sync Services, something that is available to everyone who programs for the Mac, for something like five years. Even Outlook's predecessor, the not-very-good Entourage, could sync calendars (though, to be fair, Entourage's synching was very unreliable, producing duplicates galore). It's a mind-boggling omission.

You might be thinking that I'm just getting started, and I am, but I'll spare you the details. I will, however, describe some of the more notable gaffes that I've found in just a few days of using Office 2011.

Notable Gaffe #1: lack of awareness that computer screens are wider than they are tall.

This is Microsoft Word from Office 2011. Gee, that empty gray space looks nice and there sure is a lot of it. Meanwhile, the toolbars and "Ribbon"-- a much-trumpeted feature that is, for the most part, simply a way to turn on and off toolbars-- shove my document so far down that I get about half a page on the screen. Word could gain more than an inch of document space by putting toolbars on the sides of the window-- where all of us have extra space-- but no. Toolbars should be horizontal. Thus spake Microsoft.

Big deal? Yes. Thanks to this one poor design decision, every single user of Microsoft Word will spend extra time scrolling and zooming in and out trying to see how his documents look-- every user, every document, forever and ever amen. They call this "Print Layout View" but if you can't see the whole page at once, it's not very useful... thus the endless zoom out to see how it looks on the page, zoom back in so you can edit. A giant time waster, multiplied across thousands or maybe millions of documents per day. No wonder we're not keeping up with China.

Notable Gaffe #2: registering the product-- which you must do before using it-- is a pain.
Here's the product key (serial number) from the back of the CD cover (actual size, with most of the number blurred out for security):

and here's the message I got when I typed it in:

As you can see, according to Microsoft, "The product key is not valid." I clicked that blue link to contact Microsoft Customer Service and Support, and got this:

I would have clicked "Activate By Phone" if such a link existed. But, as you can see from the figure above, the link does not exist. How helpful. (They're lucky I don't call "Inaccurate Help files" Notable Gaffe #3. Maybe I will anyway.)

Since I wasn't getting very far using the "Help" system I decided to try, try again. I very carefully typed and retyped that product key and each time got the "Invalid" message. Finally, I found my mistake: the real number is BK92B, not BK928. Microsoft has used the same weird computer-printout font to print their Mac product keys for about ten years, but as is typical of Microsoft they don't seem to look at their own products and think "how could we make this nicer for the user?" (The font face and the font size is bad, but to make things even worse, the ink they use to print the product key spreads, so the fine points of the characters get clogged up, making things even harder to read. Come on, Microsoft!)

Notable Gaffe #4: Confusing and awkward "Product ID" craziness
If/when you manage to get the product key entered correctly, you get this screen:

That's a completely different number than the product key I just entered. Why can't I use my product key to identify my product? And, what's the difference between "registering" and "activating"? Yikes.

It turns out that "registering" means you put in your name and email and sign up for "tips & tricks, product update notices, and special offers just for our Office for Mac users." Activating merely turns the product on. That's a big difference, yes, but why not use the same number for both? And, when am I supposed to do the registration? They force you to activate, but leave registration up to the user, without telling him how to do it. Hint: if you want to do it, open any Office 2011 program-- Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or Outlook-- and under the menu named for the program, choose "Online Registration." Wouldn't have been hard for Microsoft to put a link to the Online Registration webpage right here in this window, but no. Yet another example of a tiny bit of extra work that Microsoft could have done, which would have made things a lot easier for EVERY user of Office. ONE person at Microsoft could have added that link in 15 minutes. Instead, each and every Office 2011 USER gets to spend time trying to find how to Register (they don't ALL read this blog), and the cumulative amount of time lost by the users is way, way, WAY more than the 15 minutes it would have taken one person at Microsoft to fix this. I have to find that person and talk to him. Of course a lot of people never bother to register-- this screen is the last time they think of it. There's no way for me to know how many people actually bother to register, but it can't be 100% of Office users-- so Microsoft's lack of attention to detail here ends up costing them too. Holy cow, what a mess, and it would be so easy to fix-- but only if you're in the right position at Microsoft, and only if you care.

Bonus Gaffe: when you go to "About Word" (or Excel or PowerPoint or Outlook) you'll see the Product ID at the bottom of the window (see below).

But, you don't see the Product Key. So, if you have multiple copies of Office 2011, each with its own Product Key, you'll have no way of knowing which Product Key was used during the installation on a particular machine. Better write it down somewhere, because if you inadvertently use the same Product Key on two machines you'll have a situation where only one or the other machine can be used with Office at any particular time. There's no predicting the Product ID based on the Product Key, and vice versa, so if you haven't kept track of which Product KEY was used for which machine, you're going to be in a jam when you someday reinstall. This "feature" has been present in at least the two previous versions of Office 2011, and maybe more. All it does is waste time and cause frustration, and it could be EASILY fixed-- for example, they could show you part of the Product Key in the "About..." window. As mentioned above, once Microsoft has something going they don't go back and say "Gee, this really could be better, let's change it." So much for constant improvement and refinement.

Double-Bonus Gaffe: they tell us, during Activation, to "Keep the following Product ID in your records" and it sounds as if this may be our last chance to see that number... but, as seen above, the Product ID is available ANYTIME, from within the program itself. They could have simply said "You can get the Product ID at any time by going to the Word menu and choosing "About Word." Maybe they didn't know! Somehow, it doesn't seem that Microsoft actually tries this stuff themselves, or reads the dialog boxes. So easy to fix, but again, they'd have to care enough to try. Of course it was exactly the same in the previous two versions of Office, dating back to 2004-- no surprise there (and no improvement either).

Smaller but still notable blown opportunity: Poorly designed Document Gallery (template chooser)

At first glance, this looks pretty good. (You get a similar Gallery for PowerPoint and another one for Excel.) The idea is, you click once on a thumbnail in the middle section of the Gallery, obtaining a slightly enlarged "preview" of the chosen template in the right-hand pane. It's rather neat, and in some cases you get some font and color options in the right-hand pane too as shown here. But, if you double-click the preview's icon, nothing happens. You have to either click "Choose" at the bottom of the box or go back to the small thumbnail and double-click that (and it feels weird, after using the preview pane to make changes to the color scheme, to go back and double-click the small thumbnail still showing the original set of colors and fonts). The natural thing would be to double-click the big preview, now that you've made changes to it, but that doesn't work.

They Just Don't Get It award: floppy disk used as a symbol for "Save."

Here's part of Word 2011's Toolbar. Circled is the icon for "Save." I wonder whether anyone using Microsoft Office 2011 for the Mac uses floppy disks anymore. Actually, I know they don't, because Microsoft Office 2011 requires Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later, and no version of Mac OS X supports floppy drives. Apple last sold a Mac with a floppy disk drive in 1998. Before that, the floppy disk icon had some meaning (but not a lot-- we had hard drives for saving stuff, so the floppy was a lousy symbol for "Save" even before 1998), but it has zero now. All it does is make Microsoft look silly and careless and out of touch.

I could go on (and on). There are so many omissions and weird design choices and carryover dumbness from previous versions (my favorite: the character count that shows how many characters there are in your Word document, but adds "an approximate value") that I could be writing for a month. I think though that the point's been made: Microsoft Office 2011 is not very good, and I do not advise buying it except in special cases. You can contact me to see if I think you're a special case.

If you want a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation package that works the way you'd expect it to, with the ability to open and save Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents, get Apple's iWork '09. It costs a lot less, does a lot more, and is a million times nicer to use. Click here to get a 30-day demo for free.

How to Tune Up Your Mac

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-11-17T12:23:20-08:00

If your Mac seems a little slower than it used to be it might be in need of a tuneup. Here's the procedure we run for the Macs we're responsible for. Done once a month, this routine will help your Mac to run its best.

It's a three-step program.

Step 1: Run Cocktail

Cocktail does a lot of important stuff that has techie-sounding names, such as "repair permissions", "clear caches", "clear logs", and "perform Unix "cron" scripts." Fortunately, Cocktail knows what all of this stuff is, even if you don't, and it knows how to do it right. My advice: download Cocktail, choose the "Pilot" option (right-most button in the Cocktail toolbar), make it look like the figure below, and then click "Run." Might take a few minutes but it's totally unattended. Let it do its thing, including the restart, and all will be well. HINT: restart your Mac BEFORE you run Cocktail, because it will run better if there aren't other programs in the way.

You can run Cocktail a few times without paying for it but eventually you will want to register it. $14.95 for one computer, $29.95 for five. There are other ways to perform Cocktail's tasks but none that is as easy. NOTE: there's a "Scheduler" button up at the top of the window. Click it and you can set Cocktail to run on a repeating schedule. You won't make things worse by running Cocktail more often, so if you feel like having it run every Monday morning at 4:15 AM go right ahead. That happens to be the way it's set up here and look how I've turned out.

Bonus: the makers of Cocktail provide a free iPhone app with lots of maintenance hints and tips. Worth a look.

Step 2: Run Software Update (repeat until there are no more updates). Restart when they tell you to.

Generally speaking the Software Updates are good things. Sometimes, rarely, a software update will have unintended consequences. For example, a recent software update caused problems for people who emailed PDFs via automatic means, from FileMaker, AppleScript, or Automator. The problem was fixed in a subsequent update but the weeks in between were rough. If you're not sure, ask someone (me).

Step 3: Update your Microsoft stuff (if you have any)
Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage or Outlook) has an automated software update system that is supposed to keep those programs up to date. Apple's won't do it, so you have to use Microsoft's. Look under the Help menu in any version of Microsoft Word (or Excel, or PowerPoint, or Entourage, or Outlook) for "Check for Updates." The Microsoft AutoUpdate program will launch and tell you whether there is anything for you or not.

After you get one update you may "qualify" for another. Keep trying until there are no more updates. NOTE: after you choose "Check for Updates" you should quit Word (and Excel and PowerPoint and Entourage/Outlook). The updates cannot install when these Microsoft programs are running. I agree, it's kind of goofy to complain about the programs being open when that's how we got to the updates in the first place-- fodder for another article.

And that's it! It takes a little time, but when done monthly it should be less than half an hour from start to finish, counting the restarts.

NOTE: our Managed Service Plans include monthly maintenance at no charge for up to two machines, and at a reduced charge for others. I do the work personally, over the internet. You ought to look into this-- it's a time-saving, money-saving program and it's all in your favor. Click here to learn more.

How to Print Mailing Labels

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-11-15T18:43:36-08:00

Printing mailing labels is easy, especially if you're using Apple's Address Book. There are plenty of reasons to like the Address Book but the mailing list printing is one of my favorites. Here are some tips for printing beautiful labels with minimal work.

BONUS: a lot of this applies to printing envelopes, so even if you're not a Mailing Label guy there's a lot of good stuff in here for you too. Yes, you could stand at the printer and feed envelopes one at a time for your entire Christmas card list, for example.

Here we go.

Step 1: Get your list together. You'll almost certainly want to print labels for a group of people, not for just one and not for all of them. So, it's time to make a Group. Here's a picture.
One way to make a group is to click where the blue arrow is pointing. That gives you an empty untitled group, so you rename it (easy) and then you click on "All Contacts" and one-by-one drag cards into your group. That second part is not so easy-- it's a lot of dragging. Far easier: start in the "All Contacts" group, then click on ONE person that will be part of your group. Then, hold the Command key, and click on the rest of the people who belong in the group. Then, go to the File menu, and choose "New Group from Selection." It does exactly what the name suggests. Rename the group (double-click on its name) and you are ready for Step 2.

Step 2: Be sure that the addresses in your group are labeled properly. The Home address should have a "Home" label next to it, for example. If the label is wrong click the Edit button and fix it. You'll be glad of this later.

Step 3: Click on the name of the group, then go to File and Print. It is very important that you click on the name of the group. Otherwise, when you go to print, you won't be able to print labels for the whole group. Everyone forgets to do it once in a while, even when he knows better.

The Print box looks something like this. First, be sure the Style pop-up (middle right) is set to "Mailing Labels." Next click the "Layout" button just below that. That's where you get to choose the the type of label you'll be using. BIG HINT: use an Avery brand label. The Address Book is ready for any of more than 100 Avery sizes. Here, I'm using Avery 5161 (2 across, ten down-- a little more than a penny apiece).

Step 4: Now click on the Label button.

This is where you get to specify what gets printed. Notice the "Addresses" menu. By default, it says "All." You might think that means "Print a label for all of the people in the list." What it really means is "Print a label for every address in the list." So, if a person has a home and a work address, you'll get two for that person. Unless the people in your group have only one address each the "All" option is not what you want.

When you click on the "All" pop-up you see something like this (I say "something" because you probably don't have a Texas category, nor a "Primary Mailing" category-- those are custom, beyond the scope of this article). The way this list works is, if you choose "home", you print only the Home addresses. If you choose "work" you only print the Work addresses.

The wild card is the "Distribution List" option. This can be a handy thing but no one knows how it works. It's worth finding out so read on!

A Distribution List lets you print a Work address for some of the people, and a Home address for others, and an "Other" address for still others, all in one group, all in one shot. It is a lot better than intentionally mis-labeling someone's Work address as "home" just because the rest of the addresses in the group are Home addresses. So, cancel out of the Print box and choose Edit Distribution List from the Edit menu. Here's how it looks.

The problem with this box is we're interested in mailing addresses, and they're showing us email addresses instead. That's OK. Just click and change it to Address.

Now you have a box like this.

All you do is click on the address you want to print, when you print this particular contact in this particular group. The address turns bold to indicate you've chosen it (see above). You can manage ALL of the Distribution Lists right here in one box-- just click on a group, and then work your way down the list of addresses at the right, clicking once on the address you want to use for each person. Important Note: it is perfectly OK to choose to print Joe Smith's home address when you're printing from a Friends group, and to print Joe Smith's work address when you're printing from your Prospects group. Apple's Address Book lets you use a different address for each person on a group-by-group basis. The Address Book remembers what you've chosen for each group so you don't have to do the work twice.

In practice it is pretty hard to remember which address you've chosen for each person in each group, so you may go back to this Distribution List box a lot. Once you get it right, you can choose that "Distribution List" option in the Print box, to great advantage. Without the Distribution List there's no way to print some home addresses and some work addresses and some "other" addresses from the same group, all in one shot. So get to know the Distribution List and save yourself a ton of time and trouble.

There's a lot to the Address Book but none of it is very hard. There's just a lot. Take it step by step and you'll be fine. In case you're wondering, this is about ten zillion times easier than doing it in Word with one of their templates. Don't even bother.

Hidden Printing Features

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-10-27T22:03:07-07:00

Everyone knows how to print... it's just File/Print, or Command-P for the keyboard people. What else is there to know? Plenty. Here are some tips that will have you printing faster/better/more efficiently than ever before.

Tip Number One: Expand the Print dialog box.
When you bring up the Print dialog box, it might be kind of small, like this:

If you like 'em small, this box will work just fine... but if you want access to bunch of handy features, click that downward-pointing triangle in the blue square, up at the top of the box. When you do that, you get an expanded box. Just look at all of those options (see below).

Ah, that's better. You get a nice preview (now we know it's going to take 24 pages to print), and you get to specify how many copies, and which pages, and a whole lot more. Use the little arrows under the preview thumbnail to see what's one each page-- maybe you don't need to print everything after all.

Tip Number Two: Explore the Layout options.
In the expanded dialog box above, I'm printing from Safari. (One of the clues is the pop-up menu that says "Safari" on it.) If you click on the pop-up menu that says "Safari" you will see some other choices (see below). Choose Layout and you'll see things change up a bit.

After choosing Layout, here I've chosen to print two "pages" on each sheet of paper. All of a sudden my 24-page print job is going to take only 12 sheets. All I did is choose 2 from the "Pages per Sheet" menu (could have been 4, 6, 9, or 16 if I wanted it to be) and then choose an option from the Border menu. See below.

Pretty neat. One of these days this is going to help you.

Tip Number Three: Print your pictures using Preview
I hope that you're using Preview to open JPEGs and PDFs and other graphic formats. I could write a nice blog entry showing why Preview is so much better than Acrobat Reader, or I could just tell you it's better and hope you'll take my word for it. When it comes to printing, nothing has a better combination of features and ease of use than Preview-- certainly not Acrobat.

Here's a picture, opened in Preview, and we're ready to print.

This looks a lot like the Safari Print dialog but there are plenty of differences. Most important is the "Scale to Fit" button. You can see, in the box next to "Scale", that Preview had to scale the image to 70% to fit it onto the paper. Nicely, conveniently, this is what Preview does, by default. Very nice of them.

The Auto Rotate checkbox is almost always a good thing to have checked, so leave it checked.

Now, let's look at the bottom of the box, where it says "Images per page." Let's say that you want to make multiple copies of the picture-- smaller ones that you can give away. Choose a number other than 1 in the Images per page pop-up menu, and check the box next to "Print n copies per page." ("n" will be the number you chose in the Images per page pop-up menu.) You'll see what you're going to get in the thumbnail preview. Notice that "Auto Rotate" did its thing here, rotating the image so it fits better on the page.

You can't do it any easier than that.

Pretty neat, eh?

New Apple MacBook Airs

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-10-20T14:09:45-07:00

Apple introduced a new MacBook Air portable computer today-- actually, two of them. One has a 13-inch screen and the other an 11-incher. They replace the existing MacBook Air and offer several improvements over the older model, including longer battery life, better screens, instant on, and a great big multi-touch trackpad. The biggest difference under the hood is the use of a "Flash" drive rather than a traditional spinning mechanical hard disk. For all practical purposes the MacBook Air's new Flash drive is just like a digital camera card-- small, flat, no noise, no moving parts, all electronic, low power demands. You can get as much as 256 Gigabytes of storage space when you buy the MacBook Air and if I were buying one, that's what I would do. There's a 128 GB version, and a 64 GB version (for the 11-inch model only) but I'd go with 256. I wouldn't be mad at you if you got the 128, but I would not recommend the 64 GB model because I think you need more space than that.

You will enjoy this little video, courtesy of Apple, talking about the new MacBook Air and how it came to be.

Here are some things to watch and listen for as you watch the video.

Isn't it ironic that Apple has based this machine on Flash technology, when it was only a few months ago that Steve Jobs was telling us how miserable Flash is and that he wants nothing to do with it? Actually, maybe it's not ironic. It turns out that "Flash" is the name of two totally different things. The Flash that Steve doesn't like is resource-hogging software from Adobe, used in web page design. The Flash that Steve does like is a little storage device on a chip, like a camera card. Totally different things, with the same name. What a drag.
They refer to the camera as a "FaceTime" camera. Yesterday, we called it the iSight camera. Bye-bye, iSight. Hello, FaceTime. I'd expect to see more and more FaceTime stuff as time goes by-- including, I predict, coming soon to an iPad near you.
Does every interview with Jonathan Ive have him facing the same direction, slightly off-screen? So far, yes.
Bonus: Jonathan Ive says "Aluminium" as only he can say it, at the 2:27 point. Listen for it.

All four models are available for ordering from Apple's website today. Here's the link. By the way, you'll get the new iLife '11 package pre-installed, for free.

Update: two more things about the new MacBook Airs. First, they are fast-- about as fast as the "regular" MacBooks and MacBook Pros. Second, they are thin. Very thin. If they were any thinner they would only have one side! Heh heh. Extra credit for those who laugh at my joke.

Solve an Irritating Mail problem

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-10-15T18:14:38-07:00

Ever make a typo in someone's email address, and from then on Mail keeps using that mis-typed address? Or, ever have a friend change email addresses, and every time you try to email him Mail remembers the old address instead? What an irritation. Most people just live with it, but some people complain, and thanks to them we have this here blog entry that tells you how to Fix This Problem.

Step 1: in Mail, go to the Window menu and select "Previous Recipients."

You'll get a window like this one, but less blurry:

That's a list of everyone you've sent emails to. Find the ones that are wrong, click on them, and use the "Remove From List" button to get rid of them. Problem solved.

Microsoft Entourage users: I haven't forgotten you. You can indeed clear out an address from Entourage's "Recently Emailed" list-- but it's an all-or-nothing affair. Apple's Mail is better because it lets you pick and choose.

Here's what it looks like in Entourage. Get there by going to the Entourage menu and choosing Preferences.

Of course you won't see the helpful red box, but you'll figure it out once you're there.

Quickly Edit Events in iCal

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-10-05T23:28:39-07:00

Maybe I should have known this one and maybe everyone else already does. I guess we'll find out.

When you make an event in iCal it is assigned a "calendar" (category). The one that's assigned is the one that's selected in the list at iCal's left. Often, it's not the one you want. Here's how to change it quickly.

This is my list of iCal calendars, and I've selected "CB & A." If I make a new event it will belong to the CB & A calendar.

If I want to change it to "cb Personal" it used to take a bit of work:

Double-click the event
Click the Edit button
Choose a Calendar by clicking on the name of the calendar you assigned to begin with and then choosing another
Click the Done button.

That's too much work. My new method is a whole lot faster and easier. All it takes is a Control-click on your event, in any view (day, week, or month) and a contextual menu appears, with a "Calendar" item in it. Choose a calendar by sliding down to Calendar and then over to the calendar you want. Using this Control-click method you can assign a calendar to an event in one click.

Did you already know that?

Time-Saving Mail Shortcut

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-09-22T20:04:04-07:00

I think you're going to like this one. Actually, I think you are going to hit yourself on the forehead and say "I can't believe it!" On to today's tip, for Apple Mail users.

When you're using Mail to read email your window looks something like this (but, hopefully, not as blurry):

Direct your attention to the area within the red rectangle in Picture 2:

See those little arrows next to some of the messages? They mean something. The curvy one means you replied to that message. The straight one means you forwarded the message. Ah, but that's not the tip. The tip is, if you click on a curvy arrow, it shows you your reply! If you click on a straight arrow it shows you your forwarded message. This can save you all kinds of time-- rather than searching through your Sent mail to find the reply you sent, you simply click the curvy arrow and voila, there it is.

Yes, it's been there all along, and yes, I'm sorry I didn't mention it earlier. I meant to.

Entourage users: you can click the link that says "Show Reply." Look for it.

Groovy Time-Saving Command-Drag Tip

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-09-18T16:32:42-07:00

Back in July I wrote about how cool it is to have icons in the Toolbar at the top of Finder windows, making it quick and easy for you to drag and drop without going all the way to the Dock. Today I discovered a groovy time-saving shortcut that makes putting those icons into your Finder's Toolbar super fast and easy.

This only works with icons that are already in the Dock, because that's where we are going to drag them from. First thing to do is be careful: make the wrong move and you will drag icons OUT of the Dock rather than dragging COPIES to the Finder windows. Nothing to worry about, just follow directions, which amount to a single step! Here it is:

Step One: HOLD THE COMMAND KEY while dragging an icon from the Dock to the top of a Finder window (the Toolbar). Which one is the Command key? It's the one that isn't Control, and isn't Option. It's the one with either an Apple, or a clover thingy, or both on it. It might even say "Command" right on it! Whichever, it's right next to the Space bar. Anyhow, if you hold the Command key down, and then you click and drag an icon from the Dock to a Finder window's Toolbar, you'll end up with the same icon in both places. Neat. You'll see a little green circle with a white "+" in it while you drag, if you're doing it right. If you don't see the little green circle with the white "+" in it you will tear the icon right out of the Dock, accompanied by a puff of smoke and a little "poof" noise. If you don't see the little green circle with the white "+" in it just drag the icon back to the Dock.

VISUAL AIDS:
Command Key (no it will not be outlined in blue on your keyboard):

Little green circle with a white "+" in it:

Puff of smoke (you don't want this):

New Strategy for iPhone App Organization

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-09-17T21:28:03-07:00

If you're using iOS 4 on an iPhone you've no doubt seen "Folders" as shown above*. What? You haven't? Visit this link, then come back. Folders are great for grouping apps (here, I've put a bunch of weather-related apps into their own folder), but they're also great for giving you quick access to a lot more apps in a lot less time (and a lot fewer taps). The trick is to store folders in the Dock.

Here's what my first Home screen looked like before I got organized. As you can see from the dots near the bottom of the screen, I have the full complement of eleven Home screens, which means a LOT of apps are more than a swipe and a tap away. The four apps in the Dock (OmniFocus, Pastebot, Mail, and Settings) were available with one touch regardless of which Home screen I was on, but with 200,000 apps I had a bunch that I use all the time. I had to find a better way.

My plan: put folders into the Dock, allowing me quick access to a lot more than four apps. It was a great plan, except for one thing: you can't create a folder in the Dock.

Turns out that there's a way around that. The trick is to make the folder somewhere else. Then drag the whole folder to the Dock. Once you do that you can move additional apps into the docked folder. Here's what my first Home screen looks like now.

Now I have access to a whole bunch of fun stuff on Home Screen 1, and another giant pile of apps just a tap away in my "Main Apps" and "Super Faves" folders. Here's what it looks like when I tap those folders.

First, my Main Apps...

and here, my "Super Faves."

I haven't done the math yet but it seems to me that I have a lot more apps just a tap or two away from wherever I might be. It does take some re-training as I had become accustomed to going swipe-swipe-swipe to find my apps, but I'm getting there. Overall, it's working for me, and if you have a lot of apps I think it will be worthwhile for you as well.

*I know, they don't look like "folders." But that's what they're called.

Rearrange Your Menubar Icons

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-09-15T23:16:50-07:00

Seems as though the icons in my menubar are multiplying. I know what they are but I don't remember putting them there. (In fact, I didn't put them there-- most were placed there automatically, during the initial installation of various programs.) Regardless of how they got there, now I want to rearrange them.

But how? You can't just click on them and drag them around... can you?

It turns out that you can. But you have to hold the Command key down while you do it.

Using the Command key trick I was able to rearrange the icons in my menubar in just a few seconds.

I started with this:

And I ended up with this:

Not a gigantic improvement but I like it. And it's so easy.

Caution: if you hold the Command key down and click on an icon in the menubar you should be careful NOT to drag the icon down, away from the menubar. If you do drag it down, don't let go-- unless you want to remove that icon from the menubar. There is always a way to get the icon back if you do remove it but it's easier to just be careful.

In case you're wondering: no, you can't rearrange the menus themselves. That is, you can't put Edit before File, and Help before that. I know you'll try but I'm telling you it won't work.

Note: not every icon is movable using the Command key technique. Here, I'm not able to move Evernote's elephant icon, and I'm also not able to move LogMeIn's gray circle with dots. Most of the other icons will be draggable-- expect it to work and be surprised when it doesn't.

Single-click Envelope Printing

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-09-07T23:31:49-07:00

Even in this email age we often want to print an envelope. Apple's Address Book can do it but it's complicated, and you don't have a lot of artistic control. Here's the Print dialog that Address Book makes you wade through-- all together now, YUCK.
I decided to use Pages, part of Apple's very excellent iWork '09 package, to make myself an envelope template that I really liked, as shown below.

(Here's your mini "how to make a template in Pages" lesson: create a document-- I started with one of Apple's supplied envelope templates-- and make it just the way you want it. Put something generic in for the name and address as I did. Then go to the File menu and Save as Template. Give it a good name and from then on you can create an envelope in Pages by using the Template Chooser.)

I named my envelope template "CB&A Envelopes" but you can call yours anything you like. Do pay attention to the name; you will need it in the next step.

You're halfway there. Now we have to make a little AppleScript to tell Pages to make an envelope from the template, and then to replace Name, Address, CityStateZip with the address we clicked on in the Address Book. It sounds hard but it won't be for you, since I've written the whole thing for you. Here it is.

--Put this file into your "Address Book Plug-Ins" folder, which lives inside your "Library" folder,
--which lives inside your hard drive. Remember to change "CB&A Envelopes" to the name of your
--envelope template, made using Pages.
--
using terms from application "Address Book"
on action property
return "address"
end action property
--
on should enable action for theperson with theEntry
if theEntry ≠ missing value then
return true
else
return false
end if
end should enable action

on action title for theperson with theEntry
-- the string in the next line will appear when you click on an address' label in the Apple Address Book.
return "Make Envelope"
end action title

on perform action for theperson with theEntry
set theAddress to formatted address of theEntry
set theAddress to name of theperson & return & theAddress
--
tell application "Pages"
activate
--You have to specify a template. Best to make your own. Mine is called "CB&A Envelopes"
set mydoc to make new document with properties {template name:"CB&A Envelopes"}
tell mydoc
set every paragraph to ""
set paragraph 1 to theAddress
end tell
end tell
end perform action
end using terms from

You can copy and paste what I have here into a new AppleScript Editor document (but remember to change "CB&A Envelopes" to your own template's name), or click here to download the file from me. Either way you still have to specify the name of your envelope template. If you can't find the AppleScript Editor look in your Utilities folder. If you still can't find it, look in your Applications folder for "Script Editor." Same thing, or close enough.

After placing the script into the proper location (Address Book Plug-Ins folder) launch Address Book and click on the label next to an address. The label is the part that says "Home" or "Work" etc. You should see a menu that looks a lot like this one:

Choose "Make Envelope" and what SHOULD happen is Pages comes to the front, an envelope is created based on your template, and the address you chose is filled in nice as pie.

This sounds like a lot of work but it's not. I've written the script for you, and that was the hard part. All you have to do is make an envelope template, make one tiny modification to the script, and save the modified script in the right folder. Do that once and you'll be able to produce envelopes any time you want-- with only a single click. You can email me if you need help making this work.

If you need a copy of Pages you can get it in the iWork '09 package, available at Amazon.com. Click here to get it.

Note: your envelope template, and the script, can be copied to any number of machines, ensuring that your entire staff can make the same great envelopes every single time, all with a single click. Note also that my template includes my logo, meaning I don't have to pay anyone to print envelopes for me 500 at a time. Very nice.

Top 3 iPhone Games

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-08-13T21:25:06-07:00

Note: I am honored to present this special Guest Expert blog post, written by my friend Zach, a Macintosh and iPhone gaming expert.
-- Christian Boyce

Top 3 iPhone Games
by Zach, age 9

First Place: Ancient War
Type of game: side-scrolling battle
Point of the game: destroy a totem pole without your own totem pole being destroyed too
Cost: $1.99

Ancient War is great difficulty-wise. It has different levels that start off really easy and become extremely hard. Also Ancient War has good action, good controls and okay sound effects. I like how every couple of minutes you get to shoot fireballs.

Ancient War

Second Place: Angry Birds
Type of game: Arcade
Point of the game: get your eggs back from the green pigs by launching birds at the pigs using a big slingshot
Cost: 99 cents

Angry Birds is like Ancient War difficulty-wise. It has different levels, some easy and some not. Good controls, pretty good action, and ok sound effects. I like how you shoot your birds from the slingshot and hit something hard.

Angry Birds

Third Place: Eliminate Pro
Type of game: shooting
Point of the game: kill a guy without being killed
Cost: FREE

I like Eliminate Pro because you can play people online. I play it with my friend William online almost every week. It is good for advanced players and beginners. If you play someone good it is hard, but if you play someone not so good it is easy. It has great action, not so good controls because controls fade away a lot when you need them most so you don't know where every button is, and good sound affects. I like how if you shoot a guy when he is dead he explodes.

Eliminate Pro

NFL Prime Time iCal Calendar for 2010

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-08-11T12:47:26-07:00

Note: this is a repeat of a blog entry from last year, with updated data for 2010. Preseason games are not included.

I wanted an iCal calendar of the prime-time NFL games (Monday Night Football, the Sunday night game, the occasional Thursday night game) but I couldn't find one online. I did find the entire NFL schedule, but that was way more than I wanted. Solution: I imported the entire NFL schedule, then wrote an AppleScript to remove every game whose starting time was before 4 PM. Simple. Here's the script, for educational purposes...

-- By Christian Boyce, macman@christianboyce.com

tell application "iCal"
set the_games to every event in calendar "NFL"
repeat with i from 1 to (count of the_games)
set the_start_date to start date of item i of the_games
set the_day to word 1 of (the_start_date as string)
set the_hour to character 1 of time string of the_start_date as string
--
if the_hour is not greater than 3 then
set the_event_id to uid of item i of the_games
delete event id the_event_id of calendar "NFL"
end if
--
end repeat
end tell

and here's the NFL Prime Time calendar, ready for you to click on and import.

Note: you will get the chance to put this calendar's events into one of your existing iCal calendars. That's probably not a good idea. Choose the "New Calendar" option when asked and I think you'll be happier.

Thanks to http://www.southendzone.com/ for the entire NFL schedule in iCal form.

Like the calendar? Did it help you? Leave a comment and let us know.
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RadioShack Trade & Save program

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-08-11T12:20:11-07:00

RadioShack wants your old stuff. And they'll pay for it.

Start by clicking this link to the RadioShack Trade & Save program. Once you're there, you tell them what sort of stuff you're looking to get rid of. Here are the choices.

Suppose you have an iPhone 3G, and you're moving up to an iPhone 4 (which you can buy at RadioShack). You click on the Phones button, then choose Apple from the several manufacturers listed, then indicate which model iPhone you have. Click a few buttons to show what kind of condition your iPhone is in, click the "Calculate" button, and just like that they tell you what they'll give you for your phone. Neat. Looks like this:

Your next move is to send your stuff to RadioShack, which you do with a pre-paid shipping label that RadioShack will generate for you. When RadioShack gets your item(s) they'll look them over to be sure they're what you said they were, and then they'll send you a RadioShack gift card loaded up with money.

Of course, you may want to do this at a RadioShack store, and you can, as long as the thing you're trading in is relatively small. Here's the list of things you can bring to a RadioShack store:

wireless phones
GPS receivers
digital cameras
digital camcorders
video games
mp3 players

Everything else has to be done online, and then mailed in, but that's not much of a hardship. Still, I think I'd rather get my gift card on the spot instead of waiting for it to arrive in the mail, so where that's possible that's what I'll do.

Note: there is a slight possibility that you will not become rich by sending your old electronics to RadioShack. Some stuff, such as my 17-inch Apple Studio Display which cost $699 new, fetches an almost insultingly low price-- in the case of my monitor, $7.20. (I have to wonder about the 20 cents there-- I would have figured $7.35, easy.) Still, something is better than nothing, and since RadioShack is going to turn right around and sell your old stuff to someone else, your perfectly-good-but-not-the-latest-model electronic gizmo will get a new life with a new owner, and that's worth something too. Considering that I thought I'd have to tape ten dollars to some of my old stuff just to give it away this RadioShack program sounds like the best thing ever.

Now all I need to do is figure out what to do with the $7.20.

Save Money on iPhone Apps

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-08-07T17:53:17-07:00

AppMiner.
Some iPhone apps are free. Some aren't. Except when they are. Turns out that iPhone app pricing changes all the time. That app that you didn't buy because it cost too much might suddenly cost half as much-- or maybe even nothing at all. The trick, of course, is to get 'em when they're cheap. AppMiner, itself a free iPhone app, helps you do it.

In a nutshell, AppMiner watches the prices on the iTunes App Store, and when a price goes down, AppMiner makes a note of it. All you have to do it launch AppMiner and check the categories you're interested in. See below.

Here are some of the categories...

Here are some more...

And here are the rest.

The numbers tell you how many items in each category have dropped in price either today or yesterday. They don't go further back because prices change pretty quickly and out of date info wouldn't be useful.

Touch a category and you'll see something like this:

We're looking here at items that used to cost something, but don't anymore, in the Education category. You can see that some of these things are marked down considerably.

Touch any of the items and you get a description of the app, just like on the iTunes App store. Here's what it looks like:

If the description sounds interesting you can tap the "Free" button (or the "Get It!" button) to go straight to the right place on the iTunes App store, where you can "buy" the thing (for free). Otherwise, you can just go back and see what else might be interesting.

Of course you don't have to check only what's free. You can check what's on sale, what's new, what's top rated, etc. I go for the free stuff myself.

I check AppMiner every night to see what gems may have fallen into my lap. I don't know exactly how much money I've saved but I do know that I have a whole lot of apps on my iPhone and I've paid for only a few. AppMiner is saving me money and I'm sure it will for you also. It's on my first home screen-- a place of honor. Go get AppMiner and check, check check it. You'll be glad you did.

iTunes University

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-07-26T21:43:14-07:00

Pretty good motto.

Apple's iTunes university offers more than 250,000 free lectures, videos, films, and other materials-- from universities, museums and art institutions, and libraries all over the world. You'll find courses from Stanford, Michigan, and Cal (and from roughly 300 others-- click this link for a current list); lectures about past and current exhibits from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MOMA (the Museum of Modern Art), and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum (and many, many more); and discussions and insights from The New York Public Library, The Royal Opera House in London, and the Carnegie Institution for Science among many, many others. And it's free. Unbelievable.
Did I mention that it's all free?

Some of the offerings on iTunes U are audio, some of them have video too. I'm currently watching a set of lectures on iPhone programming, recordings of classes given at Stanford University. It's just like being there, except that I don't have to do it at Stanford and I don't have to do it at any particular time. And, if I feel like taking a coffee break I can simply pause the lecture, and if I fall asleep in class I can rewind the lecture and watch it "again."

You want this. Trust me. Start up iTunes, click on "iTunes Store" at the left, and then "iTunes U" at the right. The rest is pure exploration.

Here are some screen shots to get you in the mood.

iTunes U categories

The class I'm "taking" at Stanford

Still from a Stanford lecture

Interesting-looking class-- I should take this one

Still frame from "Introduction to Drawing" class-- I should take this one too

Offerings from UC Davis

Interesting mini-series from UC Davis

From the University of Michigan

Whatever he's teaching, I'm going to watch

Find something interesting, give it a double-click, and watch it right there on your Mac. Or, download these things onto your iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch and watch them on the go. Either way, it's all free free free, so get in there and start clicking. I guarantee you'll find something interesting.

I still can't believe it's free.

Quick Way to Enlarge iPhone's Emails

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-07-21T21:49:07-07:00

Someone (Dave) asked me how to make the text bigger on his iPhone, specifically for emails. I told him how to do it: Settings, then Mail, Contacts, Calendars, then scroll way do to the Mail section, then change the Minimum Font Size. That works, and Dave's happy, so that is that. Except that I found another way to do it.

Here's a picture of a "typical" email message, viewed on my iPhone. Definitely readable, though a little small after a long day. (If it looks a little blurry that's the screen-shot's fault, not the iPhone's. It's sharp as a tack on the iPhone.)

Here's the same email, with the iPhone turned sideways. I knew it would rotate but I didn't know it would enlarge. But, as you can see, it does. How handy, especially for those occasional times when your eyes are tired. Turn it back the other way and you're back to normal. Well, maybe YOU'RE not. But your email font size is.

Give it a try. Free, and easily worth twice as much.

FaceTime to the Rescue

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-07-19T22:49:57-07:00

No doubt you've heard about FaceTime, Apple's groovy new video-chat feature built into the iPhone 4. It's pretty cool the first time around-- in fact, it's better than that. It's incredible. Mind-blowing. Astounding. That's how it was for me. But then it wore off, becoming sort of a novelty instead of a game-changer.

Until tonight.

Tonight, one of my customers needed help with his Apple TV box. Not with his Mac, which I can see and control from over the internet-- but with his Apple TV. The customer's television was displaying a message from the Apple TV, and he wanted me to tell him how to respond. As you can imagine, it helps a LOT to know exactly what the problem is before offering a solution-- and what could be better than seeing the message on the TV for myself? Thanks to FaceTime, I could. My customer aimed his iPhone 4 at his television screen, I read the message for myself, and in a jiffy I was able to solve the problem.

I'm back to thinking that FaceTime is incredible. Mind-blowing. Astounding.

Speed Up Your Mac (#3)

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-07-16T22:57:33-07:00

So much of what we do with files starts with a drag and a drop. You might drag an image to Mail in order to send it to someone, or to iPhoto to add it to the iPhoto Library. You might drag an image to Photoshop in order to open it for editing. All of these things are easy to do (and much more efficient than going to a program, then going to File and then Open... and then hunting around trying to find your file in the resulting "Open..." dialog box. They're even easier to do when you don't have to drag your files all the way to the Dock, taking up time and introducing the potential for accidentally "dropping" the thing you're dragging, and losing it "somewhere" on your Desktop.

Here's how you do it.

Our first picture shows a typical Finder window, with some images in it.

Realizing that it's a long way to drag one of these icons to the Dock in order to open with (let's say) Pixelmator, we look for a shortcut-- and we find one, by dragging the Pixelmator icon right up into the toolbar across the top of the Finder window! Here's what it looks like (marked with a red circle to make things clearer here). I'll tell you more about how to do it in a minute.

Now, if I want to open one of those pictures using Pixelmator, I just drag it up a couple of inches (or less) to the Pixelmator icon, wait for it to highlight, then let go.

Here's an example with a whole bunch of program icons in the toolbar. With these, I can drag a file to open it in Pixelmator, open it in Preview, send it in a Mail message, add it to Evernote, or add it to the iPhoto Library. Nice.

Of course, you have to get those icons up there into the Toolbar, but it turns out to be very easy. Just go to the Applications folder, find an app that you want to have easy access to, and drag it to the toolbar. Hold it for just a second or two and it should work. Note that EVERY Finder window will have the same complement of icons in the toolbar, which makes it easy (add program icons to ANY Finder window's toolbar at it will be available in EVERY Finder window).

If you change your mind and want to rearrange the icons hold the Command key (not Control, Command) and either move the icon or tear it off and let go outside the window. Poof. Note that you are NOT throwing away the program. You're just removing a shortcut from the toolbar. And it's perfectly OK to have the same program in the Dock and in the Finder window's toolbar. Nothing wrong with that at all.

Bonus: if all you want to do is launch a program you can click its icon in the toolbar. It's like having a second Dock, except somehow it's always closer to where your cursor is. I use this all the time and I'll bet you will too.

iPhone 4 Antenna Song

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-07-16T10:42:36-07:00

I found this amusing for some reason.

Apple's iPhone 4 press conference is going on right now. They started it by showing this YouTube video.

Free Admission to MacWorld Expo

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-07-12T20:59:14-07:00

MacWorld Expo 2011 is six months away, but if you plan ahead a little you can save major buckos on admission. In fact, if you use this link before the end of the day on July 26th, you can get in for free. San Francisco in January isn't exactly balmy but who cares, it's SAN FRANCISCO, and it's MacWorld-- the biggest Mac (and iPhone, and iPad) love-fest on Planet Earth. You are likely to have a great time. Mark your calendar.

Note: they've changed the dates. The conference part of MacWorld Expo starts January 26th and the exhibits part (the part you can get into for free via this link) starts on January 27th.

Epicentral iPhone app

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-07-07T17:17:06-07:00

Here's a handy iPhone app, especially if you were in Southern California at 4:53 pm today. It's called Epicentral and it tells you where and when and how big the earthquake was.

Here's the link.

In case you wondered: Anza Borrego Desert State Park, magnitude 5.7.

Speed Up Your Mac (#2)

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-07-09T20:53:37-07:00

As we've seen before, sometimes it's not the Mac that's slow. Sometimes it's the user. Even if you're fast you can get a little faster still. Here's another hint that will save you time, day after day after day. It's all about checking boxes. Read on.

The typical Print... dialog box looks something like this:

See those checkboxes at the bottom? I've marked them with red. Let's say you want to check them. Do you carefully position the pointer inside those little square checkboxes? Well, you could, and it would work-- but that isn't something you can do in a hurry (especially if you're using a trackpad instead of a mouse). FYI, I NEVER click in the boxes. Too much trouble.

It turns out that you can click anywhere in the words beside the checkboxes (shown in purple in the picture below).

That's a much bigger target-- more than ten times as big! It's easier to hit a big target, and easier means faster. This works (or it should work) for ANY checkbox (and for radio buttons too), in any program. Give it a try and save a few seconds multiple times a day. It doesn't sound like much but it all adds up.

Bonus: if your Print... dialogs aren't nice and big like the ones shown here you need to click the little black triangle in the blue square, shown below and marked in purple. There is a shortcut for clicking that triangle, but since you only need to do it once per program (and since it's a multi-step shortcut) I'd just click the thing and be done with it.

iPhone 4 FaceTime

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-07-05T21:07:55-07:00

People ask me all the time "What does the new iPhone 4 do that my old iPhone can't?" Here's one thing: FaceTime. Only on iPhone 4.

Free Fireworks App

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-07-04T23:03:17-07:00

In case you didn't get enough fireworks tonight here's an iPhone app that lets you make fireworks anytime you want. It's called "iLoveFireworks Lite" and it's free.I can't find any written directions but through trial and error I've discovered a few things. First, tap on the screen to make a small firework. Second, drag your finger (in any direction) to make a trail that ends up in a firework. Third, tap and hold to make a BIG firework (when you lift your finger). Fourth, and this is my favorite, tap and hold with multiple fingers to make that many fireworks at once.

Here's a picture.

Go have fun. For free.

iPhone 4 signal strength

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-07-04T14:02:52-07:00

You've probably heard about problems with Apple's iPhone 4-- specifically, there's something about the antenna that makes the number of AT&T signal bars go down when you hold the phone in your hand "in certain ways". It turns out that "certain ways" includes the way I'd normally hold it (in the palm of my left hand). Bummer.

I had not noticed this problem myself, but I was able to reproduce it. Here it is, in pictures.

iPhone 4 on desk. Five AT&T bars (top left corner).

A few seconds later, I picked up the phone and held it in my left hand as anyone who uses his right hand to type would. Looky here-- down to three bars!

A few seconds later and I'm down to 2 bars.

Then I put the iPhone 4 back into the cheap-o silicone case that used to hold my iPhone 3GS and my bars shot up to 5.

So-- independent research shows that indeed this "fewer bars when holding the iPhone" phenomenon does indeed occur. Maybe, just maybe, putting the antenna on the outside of the iPhone, right where a person would naturally hold it, wasn't the best idea ever. But, as demonstrated here at Boyce Labs, we have two ways to get a 5-bar signal. One of the ways (leave the iPhone 4 on the desk) isn't practical. The other way (put the iPhone 4 in a case) is super-practical, and since there's a case for every taste, I say "get a case and put this problem behind you."

That would be the end of it, except for one thing: Apple's written a very interesting letter (click here to see it) that attempts to explain it all away. I say "very interesting" because while one might expect Apple to say "sorry about the bars, we're going to give away free cheap-o cases for all iPhone 4 users and solve this problem for you" they instead said (paraphrased) "Yes there's a problem, but it's not what you think. You had lousy signal strength the whole time, and we made a boo-boo in how we calculate the number of bars when it sits on your desk. You think you have 5 bars but you don't."

Hmm. Like I said, very interesting.

How can it be that they've made a mistake in their bar calculation "all along" (that's what the letter says), but the mistake only shows up when you hold your iPhone 4 in your hand? And how can it be that they expect me to be happy with a phone that gets 2 bars out of five while in my apartment? I think what they're telling us is that they're going to change the formula to "more accurately reflect" the signal strength... but that means that even with a case on, my iPhone 4 is going to show 2 bars. That's a different problem, and according to Apple it's all AT&T's to fix. Too bad, because I have more confidence in Apple's ability to fix a problem than in AT&T's.

iPhone Software Update (iOS 4)

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-06-27T21:51:44-07:00

Somewhat overlooked in last week's iPhone 4 pandemonium is the updated operating system for iPhones called "iOS 4". It's available as a free download for existing iPhone and iPod Touch users. (Sorry, it is not available yet for the iPad.) I put it onto my iPhone 3GS and it's working fine.

Here's what you'll get when you install iOS 4 onto your existing iPhone: (note: iPhone 4 owners can skip this-- the iPhone 4 comes with iOS pre-installed.)

Multitasking: in effect, it lets you suspend an app, and come back to it later, just as you left it-- saving you the time it takes to launch it and get to where you were.
Folders: you can group apps into folders now. Each folder can hold 12 items. I have two and a half pages of folders, grouped just the way I like them (Navigation, Utilities, Reference, Shopping, Sports, etc.)
Improved Mail: you can see all of your Inboxes at once.
Digital Zoom for the camera: like the one in Gorillacam, but now built-in.
iBooks: you can now buy books from Apple's store, and read them on your iPhone or on your iPad. Note: free Winnie the Pooh book is included and the books have the same groovy page-turning animations as on the iPad.

It took about an hour for me to do the update on my iPhone 3GS and I would expect it to take about the same for you. If you have an original iPhone (aluminum back), you're out of luck-- it won't install at all, so don't try. If you have a 3GS it's a no-brainer-- go get it, it's free.

Here's a link to Apple's site where you can learn more about the iOS 4. Here's a link showing how to install it.

Speed Up Your Mac (#1)

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-06-22T20:53:24-07:00

Everyone wants a faster Mac. It's a lot easier-- and cheaper-- to make yourself faster at using the Mac you have. Here's a great way to do it. First in a series.

Ever seen one of these? It's a Print dialog box with a couple of pop-up menus. If you want to make changes to the print settings you have to click the little up-down arrows in the blue area.

The problem with those little up-down arrows is they're LITTLE. So you have to be rather precise with the mouse, and that takes time, and it's the same with every pop-up menu, in every program, all day long. Except it's not.

Turns out that you can click ANYWHERE on the pop-up menu. Anywhere! Here's a picture showing you (in blue) where you can click-- that's a much bigger target, and much easier to hit. Knowing this, you don't have to be so precise anymore, and that'll save you time.

Here are some more examples. Which would you rather click on-- the big area in blue, or the tiny area in red? Go for the blue. Make it easy on yourself.

Here's the Appearance preference pane.

Here's a slight variation: an iCal event entry panel. Still, it works the same way. Click in the blue area.

So there you have it. With a larger target it's easier to put the mouse in the right place. Assuming you save two seconds per menu, and also assuming you deal with 37.4 pop-up menus per day (a number I just made up-- I mean, the national average), you'll save more than 5 hours in a year using this "aim for the larger target" method. That would let you spend more time ordering stuff through my Amazon link or baking cookies for sending to your favorite Mac guy.

By the way, this is my 200th post to this blog. How about that.

iCal calendar for World Cup matches

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-06-19T21:45:57-07:00

In the "better late than never" category, here's a calendar for your iCal with the time and date of every World Cup match.

Click here to get the calendar.

All you do is click on it. iCal will add it automatically. I would set it to refresh once per day-- not so important now, but when we get to the knockout round it will be nice to have the country names rather than "1st place Group C vs. 2nd Place Group D." You can turn it off with a simple uncheck-of-the-box later, or even delete it. So you're not stuck with this calendar for life.

Mail Tip: Photo Browser

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-06-13T23:08:43-07:00

Apple's Mail program gives you several ways to send digital photos via email. There's the hard way (make a new email message, then click the paperclip icon, then hunt around for your picture, then give up); the less-hard way (switch to iPhoto, find your picture, select it, and click the Mail icon), the easy way (drag a photo to the Mail icon in the Dock), and the super-easy way: use Mail's built-in Photo Browser.

Here's a picture of a new message's toolbar, with the Photo Browser button circled:

When you click that button you get a palette like this one:

Everything in iPhoto shows up in this palette. So does everything in Photo Booth. You can choose an album, like so:

You can double-click a picture to see it larger, you can search for a picture using the search box at the bottom, you can control-click on a picture to change the view to "View as List." Here's what that looks like-- could be handy someday.

I like the Icon View but it's nice to know the List view is available.

Once you've found the picture you want you simply drag it into the Mail message, exactly where you want it to be. For example:

That was easy... but there's one more thing. Look at the bottom right of the message window. There's a little menu, called "Image Size." Here's a better view.

You can click on it and change the size of the image. As you choose different options the message size (shown at the bottom left) adjusts instantly. Pretty neat stuff, really.

So... next time you're in Mail, and you want to attach a photo, click the Photo Browser button. It makes sending photos unbelievably easy.

Bonus Tip: look for a Photo Browser (sometimes called a Media Browser) in other applications too. You'll find one in Pages, Keynote, Numbers, RapidWeaver, iMovie, iDVD, Pixelmator, and probably a lot more, but (notably) not anything from Microsoft or Adobe.

iPhone Sliiiiiiide Technique

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-06-01T22:35:50-07:00

If you're an iPhone user you know that accurate pointing leads to efficient use. Actually, it's the other way around: inaccurate pointing leads to inefficient use. It's not easy to be accurate when your finger's bigger than the buttons and keys and controls on the iPhone's screen, but it turns out there's a useful technique that will help you when you're off the mark. In a nutshell, it's this: if you touch the wrong key, don't let go-- just sliiiiiiiiide to the right key, and then let go. For example:

Here I'm in the middle of writing a text message. I want to write "Stop it" and I've gotten as far as the "S." When I go for the "t" I miss and land on the "r."

You can see it in the picture below.

Do I accept that "r" and then delete it and then try for the "t" again? No! Instead, when I see that "R" indicating that I hit the wrong letter I simply sliiiiiiide over one letter, wait for the "T" to show, and then I let go. Ahhhh-- that feels good.

Here's what it looks like.

This technique works other places too. Here's one example that I use all the time: in Contacts, you get that TINY A-Z list at the right.

Supposedly you're able to touch a letter in that list and jump to the that letter in your Contacts file. More times than not I don't land where I want to-- but with the sliiiiiiiide technique I just keep my finger down and sliiiiiiide to the proper letter, and then let go.

Here's what it looks like when you touch and HOLD (yes, the list turns gray):

Keep the "sliiiiiide" technique in mind for the next time you touch the wrong spot on your iPhone's screen. It makes correcting an error as easy as making one.

I have likened this method to playing checkers: your move isn't official until you let go. Maybe that will help you remember.

Office Manager Appreciation Month

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-06-01T00:01:00-07:00

June is loaded with holidays: there's Flag Day and Fathers Day, of course, but there's also National Donut Day (on the 4th-- free donut at Dunkin' Donuts if you follow that link), Donald Duck Day (on the 9th), and Waffle Iron Day (on the 29th). To that, add National Accordion Awareness Month and National Turkey Lovers Month, and you might think that June is all holiday-ed out. But no. It turns out that June is National Office Manager Appreciation Month, and in recognition of National Office Manager Appreciation Month all Amazon referral fees for the month of June will be gift-certificated to my Office Manager. If you don't have an Office Manager you can show your appreciation for mine by clicking the Amazon link at the top of this page when you want to do some shopping.

My Favorite Shopping Site

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-05-30T15:29:12-07:00

(Note: last week one of my customers-- Tom Nevermann, AKA "The Moving Doctor"-- asked me to help him find a good deal on USB-powered speakers for his Mac. I took him to www.dealnews.com and set up an email alert for him, and now every time a good deal on USB-powered speakers comes along, Tom gets notified by email. That experience inspired me to write this blog entry as I know DealNews can save you some money too.)

I get a lot of questions that start with "Where's the best place to buy..."? Generally speaking I refer the asker to DealNews, the best website for finding great deals on tech stuff like Macs, software, printers, and networking equipment-- and a whole lot more. Here's a picture of the DealNews site, with their categories across the top. I never use the categories-- I just leave it on "Everything"-- but the categories give you an idea of the kinds of things that DealNews tracks.

Here's that same page, scrolled down a bit so you can see the deals (the top of the site isn't where the action is):

DealNews doesn't sell anything (except for advertising space). Their business revolves around getting people to come to the site, which they do by scouring the web for great deals and presenting the deals in an easy-to-navigate webpage. They don't care which store offers the deal- it might be Sears, it might be Buy.com, it might be Dunkin' Donuts. Doesn't matter to DealNews (although, if the store gets complaints, DealNews will quit showing their deals).

The more people come to DealNews the more they can charge for their advertisements, so DealNews does what they can to make you want to come back. One way they do it is by updating constantly, and that's a good reason for YOU to sort the deals in chronological order (look for a "sort by" pop-up toward the right), and also a good reason for you to check in on the site more than once a day. Deals don't last forever and sometimes they don't even last an hour. Keep that in mind when you find something you like on the site-- my advice is "buy it right now."

You can search DealNews (see the box at the top right). That's a good start, but a lot of the time the stuff you'll find has already expired. That's a drag, but DealNews has a "Get Deals via Email" feature (right above the search box) and with email alerts you'll know about deals as quickly as they're put on the site. You do have to sign up, but it's free, and they promise not to sell your email address or use it for anything else, so I think you can go ahead with this.

Setting up a DealNews email alert is easy-- you pick a store, or a product, or a category (or some combination), and DealNews will send you an email when something that matches comes along. You can set up as many alerts as you'd like, and with Christmas coming up (only 7 months away) you can sit back and cherry-pick the very best deals and save a bunch of money on your presents. I already have three presents stashed away in my secret present place, all purchased via a DealNews email alert.

Note to Suspicious Minds: you may be thinking "I'll bet they just post the deals of the people who pay the most! That's how they make their money!" Well, that might be true, but their Editorial Guarantee says they will never do that. I think they're telling the truth. If they took payola we'd find out soon enough, and when that happened we'd all go somewhere else for deals. They know that. It's in their best interests long-term to be honest, and that's what I think they are.

Of course they do take ads-- that's how they make their money-- but the ads are clearly labeled and they're not mixed in with the rest of the deals.

I check DealNews at least once a day. Recent deals that I've taken advantage of include free ice cream at Ben and Jerry's, 10-foot USB cables for $1.97 shipped, and a 42-inch 120 Hz Philips LCD TV (not for me, for a friend-- and he saved about $300). Go check it out.

In Case You Wondered
No, we do not get anything for recommending DealNews. We do get something for recommending products on Amazon.com, so if you can't find what you want via DealNews please feel free to use the Amazon link at the top of the page here. When you go to Amazon via that link they'll know we sent you, and a tiny referral fee comes our way when you buy something. It comes out of Amazon's pocket, not out of yours, so you have nothing to lose and the great feeling of supporting this blog to gain.

Gorillacam: Handy iPhone App

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-05-16T18:54:48-07:00

I've been experimenting with a free iPhone app called "Gorillacam." It comes from the people who make the GorillaMobile iPhone tripod but you don't have to have the tripod to use it. Gorillacam improves upon the standard iPhone Camera app in several ways, including the handy features shown in the picture below:

Of these, I like "Press Anywhere" (lets you take a picture by touching anywhere on the screen-- especially handy if you're taking a picture of yourself at arm's length), Self-timer (especially handy if you've put your iPhone in a GorillaMobile for taking a picture of yourself from further away than arm's length), and Grid (especially handy if you're into the "Rule of Thirds" for composing pleasing pictures-- not of yourself this time).

Here's an example showing the Grid and the Bubble Level (you can turn on more than one feature at a time, depending on which feature you've chosen.)

Here's how it (might have) looked without using the Grid and the Bubble Level. What a difference! Heh.

One feature not shown above is "Digital Zoom." You can zoom in 4x-- and though it's digital (and not optical), it looks pretty good. Yes, you could just take the picture without the zoom and then "zoom in" in Photoshop... but Photoshop's a pain, and expensive. This thing's easy, and free. Zoom in, take the picture, and send it to a friend, without coming home to connect to your computer. Couldn't be easier than that.

Here are three pictures, the first at regular magnification, the second zoomed half-way, and the third zoomed all the way. They all look pretty good to me. I held the iPhone in the same location for each picture.

Zooming is as easy as dragging a slider to zoom in or out. You'll get it on the first try.

Gorillacam works with all iPhones, including the original, as long as the iPhone is on version 3.1 or better of the iPhone OS software. Your iPhone ought to be on 3.1 for other reasons, and that's free too, so there's really no reason NOT to give Gorillacam a try. There's more to Gorillacam than I've mentioned here, and all of it's good, so go get it and have some fun. In case you missed it, here's the link.

About That Stolen iPhone...

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-05-15T00:13:59-07:00

It sounds like a joke-- "Guy walks into a bar..."-- but it's pretty serious stuff: Apple engineer loses prototype iPhone in a bar, someone finds it, leaves the bar with it, and sells it to tech/rumor/news site Gizmodo.com for a cool 5 G's. Gizmodo takes it apart, writes about it, gets lots of attention. Apple wants its phone back, police get involved, search warrants are presented, Gizmodo reporter and the guy who "found" the iPhone are both in big trouble.

That's the short story. Until now, that's all we had. Until now.

The longer story is very nicely told in the Affidavit for Search Warrant as published by Wired.com tonight. Have a look. It's a little slow to get started but when you hit the half-way point it starts getting interesting (and it gets better after that).

Looks like crime doesn't pay after all. Good.

iPhoto: Edit Using Full Screen

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-05-07T00:27:02-07:00

I'll bet you use iPhoto a lot-- not just for storing and organizing your photos, but for editing them too. The usual method of editing starts with you choosing a photo to edit by viewing thumbnails, as shown below.

Then you double-click a thumbnail and get the editing window shown below. The picture you chose is highlighted in the thumbnails across the top of the window, and the image itself is enlarged in the center of the window, ready for you to crop or straighten or whatever. That's not a bad way to do it but it's not the best way.

Next time, try this: hold the Control key and click and hold on a thumbnail. You'll get this nifty "contextual menu" and you can choose "Edit Using Full Screen" from it.

Your picture will zoom to take up the entire screen. Move the mouse to the top of the screen and you'll see thumbnails again-- that makes it easy to choose another picture. Heres' what that looks like.

Move your mouse to the bottom of the screen and you'll see these buttons-- same as in the normal "double-click-to-edit" view, but with two more buttons: Info, and Compare. "Info" is pretty obvious, but Compare is worth a little explanation.

Here's what happens when you click on "Compare"-- it shows you the picture you were editing, AND it shows you the next picture, side-by-side. You can quickly scan through your photos using the left and right arrow keys (that will load the next picture into the frame with the border) and when you find one you like, you can edit using the tools across the bottom.

You can also choose photos to compare by clicking them in the thumbnail bar across the top of the screen. And, if you want to compare more than two, hold the Command key down and click on as many more as you'd like.

Even if you never make use of Info and Compare it's always nicer to work on a larger image. Give the Control-click-Edit-Using-Full-Screen method a try. You're going to like it.

Putting It Another Way

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-04-30T10:13:13-07:00

I've thought quite a bit about this Apple, Adobe, and Flash issue. I think it comes down to this: Adobe is saying "Hardware doesn't matter." They have an idea for an app (for a smartphone) or an idea for a desktop application (for a Mac or a PC), and then they try to make it run on all of the machines they can. They don't care which phone you use-- iPhone, Droid, Blackberry, something else-- they just want to get their program to work on it, and if they're able to make it work on your phone, you can be sure that it will look exactly the way it looks on someone else's phone. Even if you have an iPhone with lots of cool hardware features, and the other guy has some other phone that isn't as good. Adobe starts "at the top" with an idea of how they want their app to work. The hardware that it runs on is irrelevant to them.

Same thing with their desktop applications (Photoshop, InDesign, etc.). They have an idea of what their program should be, and then they try to fit it onto Macs and onto PCs. They ignore much of what makes a Mac special, because that's not interesting to them. Adobe's focus is on getting Photoshop to run on as many machines as possible-- and to look exactly the same, whether you're running a Mac or a PC. Again, the hardware doesn't matter to them.

The problem with this, of course, is that some machines are simply better than others. Some phones have accelerometers, and GPS devices, and touch screens. Others don't. Macs have features that PCs don't, notably the Mac OS X operating system and a set of user interface guidelines that make using a Mac a consistent, predicable experience-- unless you're using Adobe applications, with their own Print and Save As and Open dialog boxes, a complete thumbing of the nose to the ones Apple provides for all developers to use.

If you're making smoothies it doesn't really matter if your blender is a Waring or a Hamilton Beach. If you're painting a house you can use a brush from Ace or from Home Depot (but use the one from Home Depot, I have stock). In cases like that, nobody cares about the hardware, because when you get right down to it all blenders blend, and all paint brushes paint, and there's not a lot of difference between them. When you're dealing with phones, and desktop/laptop computers, there IS a lot of difference between the offerings from different companies, and when Adobe ignores those differences, you (the iPhone and Mac owner) end up with the same crummy experience that people with lesser phones and computers get. And it's not very good.

In my opinion, hardware DOES matter. It matters a lot. So does the operating system. Adobe doesn't think so, Apple does, and that's the root of this conflict.

Apple, Adobe, and Flash

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-04-29T09:32:38-07:00

You may have heard that Apple's iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch do not run Flash. Flash is Adobe's plug-in software, used by web designers for animations and video. Apple doesn't like Flash because it's buggy and slow, and-- I suspect-- because it leads to sloppy, cheesy websites with gratuitous rollover action.

Adobe gives away the Flash plug-in-- you probably have it. They sell the tools that developers use to MAKE Flash (you watch it for free, but the people who make it pay to make it). This is a nice business for Adobe, with no real competition. They'd like to keep that going.

Adobe also makes tools that help people make applications for cellular phones-- including, but not restricted to, iPhones. Using Adobe's tools, which they sell, a programmer could write ONE program and have it work on an iPhone, a Blackberry, a Google Droid, etc. That's not possible with any other tool today. You can imagine how appealing this is to a programmer-- write your app once, and sell it to everyone with a smart phone, whether that device is an iPhone or not.

The trouble with Adobe's write once, works everywhere approach is that all smart phones are not created equal. A programmer then has to develop for the least common denominator-- that is, the set of features common to all smart phones. (Example: iPhones have accelerometers built in, so when you rotate the screen your email and your web page etc. can rotate automatically. Other smart phones don't have accelerometers. A programmer writing an app for a wide audience would not include features reliant on accelerometers because those features would only work on the iPhone.) The result is a watered-down, dumbed-down, why-did-I-spend-all-this-money-for-an-iPhone-if-the-apps-don't-take-advantage-of-its-features experience. It was the same way with Java-- you might remember. I remember, and Apple remembers, and Apple's not going to let it happen again.

Apple's recently changed its agreement with iPhone app developers to say, in effect, "use Apple software to create your apps. Otherwise, they won't be approved for sale in the App Store." Pretty compelling argument to the developer! Apple wants to ensure that applications take full advantage of the features they've built into the iPhone, the iPad, and the iPhone OS, and eliminating a middle-man (Adobe) that may not be motivated to do so is a good move in terms of guaranteeing a high-quality experience for users of Apple's devices.

Adobe's come down on Apple, officially and unofficially, saying that not supporting Flash is bad for users, nevermind bad for Adobe, and that forcing app developers to use Apple's tools will lead to stifled creativity etc. This has gone on for a few weeks now, played out on blogs and in interviews, but now Steve Jobs has addressed the issues in a nice long letter. It's interesting reading. Provide the coffee and I'll talk it over with you.

Here's the link to Steve Jobs' letter.

Make Your iPhone Battery Last All Day

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-04-26T20:43:49-07:00

When it comes to the iPhone, I hear two complaints over and over:
1. AT&T is the pits, and
2. The battery runs down too quickly.

I'm not thrilled with AT&T either but I can't solve that problem for you. I can, however, help you make the battery last longer. Do it my way and it will last all day.

First thing you do: turn down the brightness on the screen. Turn it way down. Here's where mine is:

A bright screen will run down your battery like nothing else. So fight back by dimming things down.

Second thing you do: set the "Auto-Lock" to 1 minute. This means that your iPhone will shut off its screen automatically in one minute. Yes, it's an irritation, but it's a lot less irritating than running out of battery power.

Third thing you do: turn off WiFi when you know you won't be using it. Turn it back on when you get home or to the office or Starbucks or wherever it is that you use WiFi. (The internet stuff is MUCH faster with WiFi than with the 3G network, so remember to turn it on when it's available.)

Fourth thing you do: turn off Bluetooth unless you need it. (You need it if you have a Bluetooth headset.)

Fifth thing you do: get yourself a couple of extra chargers and get in the habit of plugging the iPhone in when you can. I have one in the car and another at my desk. If you need a link, here's one for a car charger that costs $2.84, and here's one for a USB cable that provides power from your Mac that costs only a penny. You'll get both, shipped, for less than ten bucks.

Option Key tip #10: System Profiler

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-04-17T22:36:48-07:00

I have to admit, I thought I might not get to Option key Tip Number 10... but here it is!

I'll bet you've chosen "About This Mac" from the Apple menu-- it shows you a box something like this.

Processor, Memory, Startup Disk-- all interesting stuff to know.

The "More Info..." button launches the System Profiler application, an important trouble-shooting tool. But, if you hold the Option key, the first item in the Apple menu changes from "About This Mac" to "System Profiler," saving you a click. It doesn't sound like much but they all add up.

And that's 10.

iPhone Photo of the Week

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-04-13T20:52:03-07:00

Here's a picture of bluebonnets, taken with my iPhone in Austin, Texas.

Here's a link to more photos of Texas wildflowers (taken with my other camera, an Olympus Camedia C-720).

iPhone OS 4 Coming Soon

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-04-08T17:49:26-07:00

Apple showed off its upcoming iPhone software update, the so-called iPhone OS 4. It really looks great but to most people, it won't "look" at all because it's mostly under the hood, which is how it ought to be. All you'll know is your iPhone (and iPad) will be easier and more fun to use.

There are plenty of things to like about this new version but the thing I'm looking forward to the most is Multi-tasking. Multi-tasking means that with iPhone OS 4 the iPhone can do more than one thing at a time. This lets you receive Skype phone calls on your iPhone even if you're doing something else. It lets you listen to Pandora radio while you do other things. It lets you use the very cool "Line2" voice-over-IP app even if you switch away from the Line2 app. (It also lets you move between apps very quickly. This will solve a problem for ME-- the one where I'm reading a book and want to adjust the brightness. It used to be hit the Home button, find the Settings, go to the Brightness, then back to the Home screen, then find the book app, then finally tap it. Yikes. Now it's going to be about three taps. About. Yay.

I'm also looking forward to organizing my apps in iPhone OS 4's new "folders."

You can watch Steve Jobs and Co. introduce iPhone OS 4 by clicking the link. You'll see multi-tasking, folders, and a whole lot more.

The iPhone OS 4 software will come to us this summer. Watch for it.

Apple's Sold 300,000 iPads

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-04-05T11:20:37-07:00

300,000 iPads sold so far. Pretty impressive for something that no one thought they wanted or needed-- really, an extra device, not a replacement for anything else-- until Apple showed it to us in January.

Correction: it's 300,000 iPads as of midnight Saturday April 3rd (the first day they were available). That's even better.

Option Key tip #9: Special Characters

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-04-04T22:17:02-07:00

Our Option key Tip-a-Palooza continues...

Your documents will look better if you use the right characters. For example, mañana looks better than "manana," and resumé looks better than "resume." The Mac's always been able to generate these characters (not true for PCs), so why not learn how and start using the right characters today. Check out the handy table below.

	Character 	Keystroke(s)
	• (bullet) 	Option-8
	¢ 	Option-4
	ñ 	Option-n, then n
	é 	Option-e, then e
	™ 	Option-2
	® 	Option-r
	º (degree symbol) 	Option-0 (that's a zero)

You may be wondering how you'll ever remember these things, but take a look at the keyboard and some of them will become fairly obvious. For example, the cent sign (¢) is on the same key as the dollar sign ($). The bullet (•) is on the same key as the asterisk (*), which some people use for bullets (until they read this blog entry).

OK now-- that's 9.

Option Key tip #8: Option-Empty Trash

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-04-01T17:45:49-07:00

Ever try to empty the Trash and get a message like this?

Of course you have. Then you click "Empty Trash" (or hit Enter on the keyboard), and then you might get this message too:

(I say "might" because if you're on Mac OS X 10.6 AND you have some locked items in the Trash you will, and if you're using 10.5 or lower you won't.)

Most likely you will click "Remove All Items" and then-- finally-- the trash empties. Yay.

Skip all of this trouble by holding down the Option key when you choose "Empty Trash" from the Finder's "Finder" menu. Then it's a one-stepper. No messages, just a satisfying whooshy-crumpling sound.

Note: when you don't hold the Option key, the Finder's Finder menu looks like this:

Hold the Option key and it looks like this:

A little different, and as it turns out it makes a difference.

You noticed of course that without the Option key, the menu says "Empty Trash…" but with the Option key the ellipsis is gone. The menu now reads simply "Empty Trash" (no dots). Those three little dots in the menus actually mean something, namely that you are going to get a dialog box when you choose that item. Dialog boxes almost always have a "Cancel" button in them, and that gives you a chance to bail out without doing anything. This goes for every menu item with three little dots-- every menu item in every menu in every program. Watch for it and see. Three dots equals "dialog box coming up." Really.

And that's 8.

Nice iPad Video

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-03-31T21:11:04-07:00

PCMag.com reviewed the iPad and produced this very nice video that tells you all about it. Yes, the narrator speaks too rapidly, but you're in control-- put your mouse over the video and pause it if you need to (I did). Or grab the time (above the little stripe showing how much you've watched) and drag it back to the left to make the guy back up (I did that too).

PCMag: Apple iPad video review from PCMag.com Reviews on Vimeo.

First iPad Review(s)

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-03-31T21:06:56-07:00

David Pogue reviewed the iPad. Actually, he reviewed it twice. Worth a quick read.

iPad Video Tutorials

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-03-29T15:27:10-07:00

You may not have heard but Apple has something new called the iPad and it's coming out April 3rd (this Saturday). They've made some sales tools, I mean instructional videos, and you can watch them via this link. Warning: the videos are very well done and you may find yourself ordering an iPad after watching them.

Kids, take note: look at the hands in these iPad videos. Take care of your nails and you too could be an Apple "hand model." It beats working. Trust me.

Option Key tip #7: Option-Click

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-03-29T13:27:44-07:00

Ever click a link in Safari, hoping to download a PDF, and instead of downloading it opens up in the browser (or worse, in Acrobat)? That's a drag. Try it fifty times and fifty times it's the same-- you don't get a copy of your own.

Unless, of course, you hold the Option key when you click.

Here's a great example (he said modestly). Suppose you're looking for tax forms on the IRS website.

You find the form you want, and now you want to get a copy and save it to your hard disk. Without the Option key, when you click the Form 1040 link you see the form, but you don't have the form. Here's what it looks like in your browser:

Nice to look at, but it's not "yours." Try it again, but this time hold the Option key when you click the link. Presto!The file is downloaded to your Downloads folder, or to your Desktop, or wherever it is your downloads go. From there it's just another PDF, something you can double-click and open.

BONUS: Actually, you can do more than double-click and open it. You can fill it in! Try clicking on the 1040 form and typing. It works. And since it's "your" copy of the 1040, you can save it for later. Nice.

BONUS 2: If you can't find the file, and you're using Safari, go to the Window menu and choose "Downloads" (if you're using Firefox you'll find Downloads in the Tools menu. It works about the same way.). Safari's Downloads window will look something like this:

Double-click the 1040's icon to open it, or click once on the magnifying glass to reveal it in the Finder. You're on your own from there.

And that's seven.

Please please please backup your Macs

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-03-26T22:57:50-07:00

Another hard drive bit the dust this week. This one was in a three year old MacBook. Fortunately, the machine had been backed up regularly using Time Machine. When the hard drive died we replaced it with a new one, started up from a Snow Leopard DVD, connected the backup drive, and copied everything from the backup to the new drive. It took about an hour to get the old drive out, the new drive in, and to set up the transfer from the backup, and another hour to actually do the transfer (giving us the opportunity to go for pastrami sandwiches). Without the backup we would have had to send the drive out for data recovery, leading to a big bill and several days of being without the machine. With the backup, it was no big deal.

I hope you're getting the message: hard drives eventually wear out. If yours hasn't yet, consider yourself lucky, but get an external disk and back your stuff up anyway. If you have questions about how to do it click this link and read all about it. If you're still stuck send me an email.

iTunes App Store Wish List

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-03-26T22:29:30-07:00

All of a sudden, the iTunes App Store has a "wish list" feature. Didn't used to, and it made shopping for apps a little harder than it had to be because you had to write down the names of apps that you thought you might want to go back to. Now (as of a week or so ago) it's all built in. Here's how it works:

Start iTunes and go to the "iTunes Store" section
Find an app that you want to add to your Wish List"
Click the little triangle to the right of "Buy this App" (or on free apps, to the right of "Free App"), revealing a menu
Choose "Add to Wish List" as shown in the picture below.

Note: if you add a free app to your Wish List you'll get this message:

They're probably right-- it's free now, but might not be when you decide to buy it. Just download the thing now and decide later whether you want it.

To see the items in your Wish List you go to the far RIGHT side of the iTunes window, click the tiny arrow to the right of your AppleID, and then choose "Wish List." Easy. Here's what it looks like, with the Magic Finger showing you where to click.

When the Wish List comes up it will look something like the picture below. And no, these aren't really things I want. They are just here to help you get the idea. If you really want to buy me something make it something involving coffee, chocolate, and whipped cream.

Neat stuff, and I think I will be using this quite a bit to help me remember various apps that I want to compare. Thanks, Apple. Very nice of you.

Option Key tip #6: Option-Drag to copy

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-03-26T12:50:47-07:00

The Option Key Tip-a-Palooza continues with one of the handiest tips ever, namely the Option-drag technique. Basically, it comes down to this: when you drag things around they move, right? Right. Except if you hold the Option key! If you hold the Option key when you drag stuff you'll make copies.

Here's an example, using iCal.

Suppose you have an appointment on Tuesday, like so (light week):

Let's say you have such a great time eating ice cream on Tuesday that you want to do it again on Wednesday. If you drag that appointment to Wednesday it moves to Wednesday, and it's gone from Tuesday. Looks like this when you're done.

If what you really wanted to do is eat ice cream on Tuesday AND Wednesday you can do it-- just hold the Option key down while you drag! Here's what it looks like as you do it.

And here's what it looks like when you let go. I'm hungry.

This is much, much easier than entering an event twice. Or even copying and pasting. And it works in a lot more programs than just iCal, including...

The Finder (Option-drag to duplicate a file or folder)
Microsoft Word (highlight some text, Option-drag to insert that text somewhere else)
Microsoft Excel (highlight some cells, Option-drag (grab the EDGE of the selection) to copy those cells elsewhere. Great for headings!)

That's six.

A Few of My Favorite Apps

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-03-24T22:42:58-07:00

No, I'm not done with the Option key Tip-a-Palooza. I just thought this iPhone appsfire thing was too cool not to share. You can find some neat apps by clicking here and going to the appsfire.com website. Or you can just do everything exactly the way I do it and make your iPhone just like mine.

Yes, those apps are on MY iPhone. I have many others but these are some of my favorites. Click anywhere on the picture to go to a larger view, where you can click on the individual apps and try them or buy them. Eight of these apps are free, by the way.

Here's a link to John Coltrane performing "My Favorite Things." Enjoy.

Option Key tip #5: Rotate the Other Way

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-03-24T01:21:27-07:00

You took this photo...

and now you want to rotate it so the label is readable, right-side up.. If you're using iPhoto, the Rotate Button looks like this:

If you click that button three times the picture rotates, in 90 degree steps, to the proper position. Yay. But, if you press the Option key, the Rotate Button changes to rotate the other way, so you can turn your sausage right-side-up in a single "Option-click."

It doesn't sound like such a big deal to save two clicks, but all those clicks add up. Ask someone with carpal tunnel syndrome.

This "Option-click" technique works in iPhoto, Preview, iWeb, and probably a bunch of others. It is worth experimenting. The nice thing is, the button's picture changes to show it's going to rotate things the other way when you hold Option.

Here's the properly-rotated picture, done with a single Option-click. Tasty stuff.

And that's five.

Option Key tip #4: Address Book Groups

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-03-21T00:51:39-07:00

You probably know that Apple's Address Book lets you create "Groups" of people, and you might also know that a given person can be in multiple groups. For example, you might have a Family group, a Soccer Team group, and a Christmas Card group, and your brother might be in all three of them. That's pretty neat, but unless you have an incredible memory there's no way you're going to remember which groups your brother is in. And there's no indication in the Address Book that a given person is in any group at all, let alone an indication of which one(s).

Unless of course you hold down the Option key. Of course.

In the picture below I've found a person's card, clicked on it in the "Name" column, and then held down the Option key. That produces the yellow highlighting, letting me know in an instant that Mom is in the "Mass email list" group, the "test group" group, and the "California" group. Let's face it, that's pretty cool.

And that's four.

Option Key tip #3: Close All Finder Windows

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-03-20T00:36:32-07:00

Our Option Key Super-Tip marathon continues with Tip #3.

Here's the situation: you have a mess of Finder windows open, like so--

Now you want to close them. So you either go to the File menu and choose "Close Window" or you click the red button at the top left of the first window... and then you do it again... and again... zzz.

If you really want to close them all hold the Option key when you go to the File menu and you can do it in one shot. See below.

(on the left: the regular File menu. On the right: how it looks when you hold the Option key.)

Bonus: if you hold the Option key and click ANY Finder window's red close button you will close ALL Finder windows. Very nice.
Double Bonus: this Option key technique works isn't specific to the Finder. It also works in Safari, Mail, Microsoft Word (but only if you use the Option-click-the-red-button method-- the Option-click-File/Close method does not work), and Microsoft Excel (same restriction as for Word).

That's three.

Option Key tip #2: Battery menu

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-03-18T23:55:52-07:00

If you hold the Option key down before you click on the battery icon (10.6 laptop users only) you will see "Condition: Normal" (I hope) or "Replace Now" or "Replace Soon" or "Service Battery." And, if you actually do choose that "Condition: " menu item you'll get a Help screen that gives you some explanation. Pretty neat.

That's two.

Option Key tip #1: Airport Menu

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-03-17T22:07:16-07:00

You really ought to get to know the Option key on your keyboard. It helps you do all sorts of neat stuff. I am going to write Option key tips until I can't think of any more, or until enough people ask me to stop. Anyhoo, here's Option Key tip #1.

If you are using Mac OS X 10.6, and you make use of Apple's fabulous "Airport" wireless networking, you can learn a lot of things by holding down the Option key and clicking on the Airport menu. Here's a picture of the Airport menu. It's up by the clock, at the top right of your screen.

(double-size... blurry, but easier to see)

Normally, when you click on the Airport menu it shows you the available networks. With the Option key, and Mac OS X 10.6, you get that, but you also get a lot more. Looky here (Blue Pointing Finger added for emphasis-- you will probably not see a Blue Pointing Finger on your menu):

All of that mumbo-jumbo would help someone (someone like me) figure out why you might be having problems with your internet. Some of the more interesting info:

This Mac is connected to the Airport Base Station (or other wireless access point) via 802.11n. It doesn't get better than that. 802.11g is also common, but not as good. If yours shows "n" be happy.
The Transmit Rate will either be 130 Mbps (for newer Apple Airports, and other wireless access points with "n") or 54 Mbps (for older Apple Airports, with 802.11g). If it's NOT 130 or 54 you probably have a problem either with your Mac's Airport card or with your Airport Base Station. I saw this just the other day-- a customer's Transmit Rate was bouncing all over the place, between 2 Mbps and 20 Mbps, lousy either way. Another Mac in the same room showed 130. Conclusion: hardware problem with Mac #1, and a trip to the shop to replace the Airport card.

Try holding down the Option key and clicking on YOUR Airport menu. Mom, this won't work for you-- your system is only 10.4. Sorry.

UPDATE: you can get some of this info on 10.5 Macs too. Worth a try.

Time Machine to the Rescue

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-03-15T00:31:53-07:00

One of the best features of Mac OS X 10.5 (and 10.6) is Time Machine. It's automatic backup software, built into the system, and it works really well. It's easy to set up, and you can forget all about it after that-- until the day you need it. You'll be very, VERY happy to remember it that day.

Hard drives aren't made to last forever. One of my customers found that out last week, when her iMac's hard drive simply stopped turning. The machine was only two years old! Replacing the hard drive was the easy part-- but, as my customer said, "What about all of my stuff?" Luckily-- or, really, good on us for thinking of this a long time ago-- we'd been backing up the iMac with Time Machine, and we were able to restore all of her stuff to the new drive. Years of email, thousands of photos of grandkids, a big address book, a full calendar-- all restored in a few hours and with minimal fuss. No one likes having her Mac break down but getting everything back feels pretty good.

If your Mac is on 10.5 or higher, and you want to start using Time Machine, you'll need to get a big external hard disk to store the backed-up data. You'll want something much larger than the drive you're backing up, because Time Machine keeps multiple backups of your stuff (multiple versions, from multiple days) and more hard disk space equates to more days of backups. Here's a link to a nice drive from Seagate, makers of the best drives around. This one's 1.5 terabytes, which is about 1500 gigabytes, available from Amazon for about $120.

Here's a picture.

So, you get the drive, you plug it in, you get a message asking whether you want to use the drive with Time Machine, you click the Yes button, and that's it. Easy. Depending on how the disk is formatted you may have to reformat it for use with Time Machine but that's not a hard thing to do. If you need a hand with that I know a guy but I think you can do it yourself.

Apple has a very nice article about Time Machine via this link. Worth a peek.

(Note: besides helping you recover from a major hardware meltdown, Time Machine is also great for when you need to get an older copy of a single file-- maybe the current one's become damaged, maybe someone threw it away, who knows. Time Machine has rescued me more than once, mostly helping me bring back trashed files that I didn't think I'd ever need again. It's quite the little safety net.)

Nice Deal on 1Password touch

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-03-11T22:00:35-08:00

You can get 1Password touch for your iPhone or iPod Touch for free right now. It's usually $4.99. Go get it while it's free. You can figure out whether you want it or not later. I think you want it. Here's the link. And here's a video that shows how it works.

In a nutshell, 1Password (both the iPhone version and the Mac version) stores login information for websites. It does more than that (one feature that I like: password-protected notes, where you can store things like the combination to a padlock or your secret cheesecake recipe.) It's easy to use, and it's not too hard to keep your iPhone and your Mac in sync, which means you can store a password for a website using your Mac, and then retrieve that password using your iPhone later. I did this exact thing last week, when paying my truck's registration fees in person. Turns out I forgot my proof of insurance papers, so I pulled out my iPhone to log into my insurance company's website in hopes of getting the documentation. Naturally I didn't know the user name and password-- but 1Password did! I looked up the info in 1Password, went back to my insurance company's website, and used the name and password to log in (and to get my proof of insurance emailed to my iPhone). That saved me more than an hour-- I would have had to drive back home to get the info. 1Password (on the iPhone) to the rescue.

You may be thinking "but I use the same password for everything, why would I need this?" The answer is "because using the same password for everything means that if your password is stolen for ONE thing, in effect it's stolen for everything." So you really ought to use different passwords for everything.

(A compromise strategy: use one password for your financial accounts and online shopping, and another for everything else. Using this strategy, if someone gets your email password, or your password for the New York Times website, your bank accounts are still safe.)

Whether you are keeping track of two passwords or two hundred, 1Password will remember them for you. It remembers, the name of the website, the name or email you use to sign in with, and the password. All YOU have to do is remember the password that unlocks 1Password. 1Password does the rest. And, because 1Password will lock itself when your iPhone goes to sleep, you don't have to worry about having all of your passwords in one place, unlocked.

In combination with Dropbox (see my post on that) you can keep 1Password synchronized across multiple Macs. That's what I do, and it's great. If I create a login for a new website, or change a login for some other website, I know that my other machine will know about the change. VERY handy.

The Mac version of 1Password, which I recommend, will cost you $39.95. Sometimes you can get a deal-- in fact, "now" is one of those times. Use coupon code "iSlayer" at checkout and save $7.99, or 20%, making your actual cost $31.96. Here's a link to the 1Password website-- watch the video, and at the very least download the free trial.

Dropbox- cboyce says "Thumbs Up."

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-03-10T12:41:06-08:00

This is Dropbox. You want it. Here's the link. They have a little video there, right on the first page. It's worth watching-- it explains the whole thing. However, if you'd rather have ME explain it for you, read on.

Suppose you have a laptop and a desktop Mac. There is bound to be some item that you would like to have with you on both machines-- maybe it's a book you're working on, maybe it's a folder of website files for your 30th high school reunion, maybe it's a checklist of things you need to do when you go on a trip. In my case, it's all of those things. Problem is, it's practically unmanageable. If I put exact copies of the documents on my two machines, and then I use a document on Machine A, I have to remember to copy it back to Machine B. And I never remember.

This is a job for a computer. And good software. Enter Dropbox.

Dropbox keeps designated folders on my Macs in sync. If I add a document to one of those folders on one of my Macs I know it will show up on the other Mac in an instant. If I make a change in one of the synced documents Dropbox makes sure that those changes make it to my other Macs. I don't have to have all of my machines on at the same time to make this work-- if one is off, Dropbox will notice when I turn the machine on later and will sync things up right away after that.

Dropbox shows up like just another folder, and you can make as many folders as you want inside of it, and name them what you want to name them, just like any other folder, with the exception being that any item in the Dropbox folder will always-- ALWAYS-- be kept in synch on all of my Macs. And, believe it or not, on my iPhone too. (Click here for the iPhone app.)

Did I mention that Dropbox is free for the first 2 gigabytes? Did I mention that it keeps backups of the things you put in it? Did I mention that you can share files with PCs too? I should have. Anyhow, now I have.

I've shown Dropbox to a lot of Mac users and every single one has said "I want that!" Now they have it. And so can you. Go get it.

Apple's first iPad ad

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-03-08T08:40:09-08:00

Apple showed its first iPad ad last night, during the Academy Awards. (I think they showed the first iPhone ad during the Academy Awards three years ago-- that worked out pretty well.)

Here's a link to the ad. I'm not sold on the iPad, nor on the ad. It's a bit noisy for me-- I was hoping for something a little less frantic. Oh well.

iPads coming soon

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-03-05T08:30:37-08:00

(from Apple's press release)

Apple today announced that its magical and revolutionary iPad will be available in the US on Saturday, April 3, for Wi-Fi models and in late April for Wi-Fi + 3G models. In addition, all models of iPad will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April.

Beginning a week from today, on March 12, US customers can pre-order both Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G models from Apple's online store (www.apple.com) or reserve a Wi-Fi model to pick up on Saturday, April 3, at an Apple retail store.

(posted via iPhone, using BlogPress)

Christian Boyce Radio Program Archive

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-03-07T10:00:01-08:00

Radio station KPFK FM 90.7 in Los Angeles had me on their show March 6th, 2010. Here are links to the audio archive: one link for the first half hour, and another link for the second. It's an interesting show so I recommend you listen to both. However, the interview with me is in the second half.

Christian Boyce on the Radio

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-03-03T21:48:57-08:00

There's a terrific radio program called "Digital Village" on Saturday mornings in Los Angeles. The hosts (Ric Allan and Doran Barons) discuss technology and its impact on communication. It's always interesting. You should check it out.

This Saturday, March 6th, I'll be Digital Village's featured guest. I'll be talking about last month's Macworld Expo, and iPads, and iPhones, and Macs.

The show starts at 10 AM Pacific time. My portion of the program begins at 10:30 AM, roughly speaking.

Three ways to listen:

Tune your radio to KPFK, 90.7 FM.
Click this link and listen over the internet (or go to http://www.kpfk.org/listen-live.html and try the various options).
Wait for the interview to be archived and for me to put up a link to it here.

Depending on how things go there might be time for some phone calls. Here's KPFK's phone number: (818) 985-5735

NBC Olympics Cheer App

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-02-26T11:26:24-08:00

Cheering on the Olympians is fun, but you need tools if you want to do it right: cowbells (for Alpine ski racing), Alpenhorns (for ski jumping), irritating airhorns (hopefully never). NBC has thoughtfully provided an iPhone app that plays all of those sounds, and more-- see below.

Here are the standard sounds. All of them play when you tap them (warning: they keep playing! Tap again to turn off), but some of them have special triggers. For example, the cowbell plays when you shake it, and the whistle and Alpenhorn play when you blow into your iPhone's microphone. Fun.

Here are the "Game Sounds." You can hear the puck being hit (Ice Hockey), the starting countdown and wild cheering (Alpine skiing), and people snoring (Cross Country skiing). You can also record your own cheer. That's sort of fun. Play it back when you feel like cheering but don't have the energy.

You can even play the sounds of a Coca-Cola pouring into a glass.

Finally, you can click a link to see video of "Uplifting Moments" on YouTube.

It's not perfect (it stopped playing sounds after my iPhone's timer went off, though a restart of the app fixed that), but for free you are definitely getting your money's worth. I say check it out. Click here to get it from the iTunes Store.

RepairPal iPhone App

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-02-24T12:30:05-08:00

I don't know much about cars. When the mechanic says "You need a new alternator" all I can say is "OK... but how much is this going to cost?" At that point, as long as he doesn't say something outrageous I tend to give him the go-ahead. Then I spend the next few weeks wondering how much I overpaid.

Those days are over! RepairPal, a handy and FREE iPhone app, lets you get an idea of what the repair ought to cost, based on your car's make, model, and year. It also takes your location into consideration. Here's an example.

Suppose your car is a Ford Explorer, 1996. Suppose the mechanic tells you it's time for a new alternator and it will cost you $300. Start up RepairPal, put in your car's info, and then your location, as shown below. Then touch "Get Estimate."

Here you see a range of prices, a little bit higher at the dealers and a little bit less at the independent shops. Now you know enough to evaluate your mechanic's quote.

Scroll down a bit and you get more info... always handy to know more.

Touch the "Find a Shop" button and you get a list of places that ought to be able to handle the job. The one at the top paid to be there-- watch for that. The rest of the shops are sorted with the closest one to you at the top of the list. They even have ratings. How cool is that?

Knowledge is power. In a way, I'm sort of looking forward to having something go wrong with my car so I can pull out my iPhone and turn to RepairPal.

Turns out that RepairPal has a website too, so if you're not an iPhone user you can still use the service (which is free).

Google Translate, now even easier

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-02-21T01:41:46-08:00

Every use Google Translate? It's really handy. I know there are other options but there are things about Google Translate that are hard to beat. Have a look by clicking here. Better yet, have a look by Control-clicking here, and then choosing "Open Link in New Window." That way, you can play around with Google Translate and read all about it here, with the windows side-by-side.

The first thing that I especially like about Google Translate is that it translates what you type as you type it. Try it. I don't know how they do it, but it works very nicely for me (Safari 4.0.4, Mac OS X 10.6.2). Here's a picture of the finished sentence, translated, but know that it was translating away as I entered my lunch request. Very cool. And of course there are plenty of choices for the "Translate from" and "Translate to" languages.

The second thing that I especially like about Google Translate is it can translate an entire webpage. All you do is type the website address into the box, where I typed in my "I would like a cheeseburger" sentence. If you are looking at a website and you get the notion to translate it, you could (1) select the URL, (2) copy the URL, (3) switch to Google Translate, (4) paste the copied URL into the box, and (5) click the Translate button. Or you could do it all in one step, if you do some one-time set-up. Obviously you want to do it in one step, so read on and I'll show you how.

In Google Translate, click where it says "Tools and Resources" at the left. Or click this link. Ignore all of that complicated-looking stuff at the top and scroll down until you see something that looks like the following picture.

Choose a language that you want to translate into. Click and hold on the blue underlined text for that language. If you let go you will get a friendly reminder from Google:

Do what it says: click and hold on a blue underlined language and drag it to your browser's toolbar. While you're dragging it looks like this:

When you let go you'll get a chance to name it. I used the name suggested by Google:

When you're done it looks like this (minus the red oval). That little button will be there forever, or until you take it off.

That's it for the setting up. Now for the fun part! Go to a web page, any web page. Let it load up. Click the button you made. If you happen to go to the same web page that I did, you will change this...

into this!

I don't know about you but I think it's amazing.

Bonus: notice that Google's put some controls at the top of the translated page. That means you can EASILY switch to another language, without starting over. Give it a whirl and let me know what you think. You can even tell me in Spanish.

AT&T's Mark the Spot app

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-02-18T01:06:37-08:00

AT&T might not have the best phone and data services (might not?), but at least they're giving us an easy way to let them know when and where we experience problems. The idea is, when something goes wrong-- dropped call, no service, slow internet, etc.-- you fire up AT&T's Mark the Spot app and tell them all about it. Seems like a good idea.

You can get Mark the Spot from the iTunes Store for free. Here's a link to save you time. And here's a picture of the app's opening screen.

They haven't thought of everything, but they do realize that if you're having technical issues with AT&T's services it's quite likely that sending them a note right then isn't going to be possible. They handle that by dropping a little pin onto a map, marking the spot (get it?) and when you finally get service again the note and the map and the pin get sent. That's kind of a clever way to do it.

Complaining about AT&T's service seems to be the "in" thing these days but it's a lot more fun when you complain to the right people, and with Mark the Spot it's really convenient. If you're having issues with AT&T's service this is the app for you.

iPhone Photo of the Week

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-02-15T19:10:18-08:00

Taken February 9th, 2010, 5:30 PM, after the rain in Los Angeles. No special lens, no special tricks, just a steady hand. Remember, the iPhone takes a picture when you take your finger OFF of the camera button, not when you touch it, so put your finger on it and hold... and when you are ready to take the picture, gently take your finger away. Obviously, it works for me.

There's a tiny strip of white at the end of the street, on the mountains. That's the Hollywood sign.

Macworld Expo Report

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-02-14T18:10:45-08:00

I'm back from Macworld Expo. I spent about a day and a half there, plenty of time to see all of the exhibits once and many of them twice.

The show was much, MUCH smaller than last year. We knew in advance that Apple wouldn't be there, but we were all wondering how many others wouldn't be there. The answer: about half of the vendors from last year stayed home.

Off the top of my head, here's a list of big companies that WEREN'T at Macworld this year:

Canon
Epson
Adobe
Quark
FileMaker
Intuit
Google
Logitech

Quite a list of heavy-hitters. Even so, the show was a lot of fun, and there was still plenty to see. I plan on attending next year and I encourage you to do the same. Dates for next year are already set: January 25th through 29th, 2011. Click here to add the dates to your iCal calendar. (Really, please click it. It's my first click-and-add-it-to-iCal link.)

Here is a short list of things that caught my eye at Macworld. Check 'em out.

iPhone apps

Business Card Scanner, $1.99 (Macworld Expo special-- regularly $5.99). Take a picture of a business card using your iPhone and the program reads the information and adds it to your Contacts on the iPhone. Since you're surely synching your iPhone with your Mac that means the contact will be on your Mac too. Very neat. I bought it and it works. It's not always perfect but it's always good enough to be pretty helpful.
Grocery Pal, free. Tell it your zip code and it gives you all of the specials for the stores around you. Limit it to just the stores you like if you want to. Add items to your shopping list for each store and do price comparisons across all of your stores. Search for items easily. By the way, blueberries are 2 baskets for $3 at Ralphs this week.
Square-- not yet available, but boy oh boy does this look good. It lets you accept credit cards as payment even if you don't have a merchant account. The Square people will take some small percentage of the transaction, currently estimated at 2.99%. No yearly fee, no per-transaction fee, no muss no fuss. This will be great for when you go out to dinner with friends-- you could pay the restaurant with your credit card, and your friends can pay you with theirs. Neat. The app will cost 99 cents and the scanner thingy will be free.

Mac stuff

TopazLabs Photoshop bundle, $129 (Macworld Expo special-- slightly higher now). This amazing set of tools, which also works in iPhoto, lets you do incredible things to your photos. Some of the tools help you to rescue badly exposed or backlit photos, others help you to take the noise out of noisy jpegs, others let you have a great time experimenting. Get a 30-day trial and go to town.

Click here to see a slide show of some pictures I fixed up last night with Topaz in about two seconds. Look for the navigation (next, previous, home) at the top.

I still have a lot of Macworld paperwork and notes to go through so I may be adding to this list.

Save Time with Auto Fill in Excel

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-02-09T19:15:45-08:00

Take a look at the Excel document below. Notice anything? Of course you did-- each column is a series, progressing from a starting item to an ending item in some sort of regular way.

It took me 59.4 seconds to enter this data. Really. That's one cell of data per second-- very, very, very quick, and it's not because I'm such an amazing typist. Actually, I let Excel do most of the typing for me, using a feature called Auto Fill. All I did was type the first row of data. Excel did the rest. Here's how it works.

1. Type something into a cell and hit Enter (or Return).
2. Click on the cell again to select it, and let go.
3. Look for a little box at the lower right-hand corner of the selected cell. Move the mouse over that until the cursor looks like a little black "+" as shown below.

4. Click the lower right-hand corner with that black plus, hold the mouse button down, and drag down (or to the right). Excel fills the cells with the right stuff. Amazing.

The four steps above will work in a lot of cases. In fact, they work for the first four columns in our example. But, when you get to the last two columns, those steps don't work, and that's because Excel doesn't know whether we want to go up by one, or two, or five, or whatever. We have to tell it.

The trick is to enter not just the first item in the column, but also the second. So, in the example here, I typed a 1 and then below it a 2. Then I selected BOTH cells, via click-and-drag, and THEN I clicked the lower right-hand corner and dragged down. For the column at the far right, I entered 5 in the top row, 10 in the next row, selected both cells, then dragged that lower right-hand corner.

You'll know you're clicking in the right place when the cursor looks like the black "+".

Next time that you have a lot of data to enter into Excel look for the chance to use this Auto Fill method. It will save you a LOT of time.

Bonus: if you type "Jan" Excel will enter "Feb" and "Mar" etc. If you type "1st Quarter" Excel will enter "2nd Quarter" and "3rd Quarter" etc.

Bonus 2: you can select more than one cell in the top row, then grab the lower right-hand corner of the selection, and then Auto Fill all of those columns at once. Try it.

Macworld Expo is this week!

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-02-09T10:12:40-08:00

The big Macworld Expo show starts this Thursday in San Francisco. For the first time in Macworld's history, Apple will not be there. (In case you didn't know, Macworld Expo is put on by the people who own Macworld magazine. Apple was never the host of Macworld, only an attendee.) It should be an interesting show anyway. Prediction: there will be several super-cheap iPad knockoffs available for you to waste your money on. I mean "buy."

You can get a free pass to Macworld by clicking this link and signing up. That will save you $25 over doing it at the show. Do it do it do it (Dave). You can buy me a cup of coffee on the show floor with the money you save.

For the first time in fifteen years I will NOT be doing a remote radio interview from Macworld. KPFK is having a pledge drive and it has pre-empted the Digital Village program that usually has me on. The hosts have told me that I'll be their first guest as soon as they get back on the air. Watch this space for details.

My Top Five PAID iPhone Apps

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-01-29T10:10:31-08:00

Here are five iPhone apps that I bought with my own money. I use them all the time. Definitely worth your consideration.

Christian Boyce's Top Five PAID iPhone Apps
Live Cams, 99 cents. In combination with EvoCam ($30) on your Mac and a cheap webcam, Live Cams lets you see live streaming video on your iPhone. I use it to look out the window when I'm not home. Lots of fun, and useful too.

OmniFocus, $19.99. Combine this one with OmniFocus on your Mac and you will Get Things Done. See my review of OmniFocus for more details. I use OmniFocus all the time-- it is one of my "four at the bottom of the screen" applications, along with the Phone, Mail, and Settings apps.

Peterson Field Guide to Backyard Birds, $2.99. Easy-to-use bird identifier, with lots of pictures. You can play each bird's song-- very useful when trying to identify a bird that you can hear but not see. The app has 180 birds in it, is easy to use, and though there are many others I think for $2.99 you can't go wrong with this one.

LogMeIn, $29.99. I use LogMeIn on the Macs in my office to provide remote support for my customers-- it lets me control their Macs remotely, allowing me to give lessons and to troubleshoot around the world without leaving my chair. On those occasions when I do leave my chair, I have LogMeIn on my iPhone, and it lets me control a customer's Mac from anywhere that I can get cell reception. Yes, it's a little hard to do. But in a pinch, it's just what the doctor ordered.

RedLaser, $1.99. What a great world we live in (minus the lousy economy). With Red Laser I can use the camera on my iPhone to scan a bar code on something I'm thinking of buying. Red Laser then tells me how much that thing would cost at an assortment of online retailers, as well as at local brick-and-mortar stores ("local" because the iPhone knows where you are!). Having that information right there on the spot makes it super-useful. You'll save a lot more than Red Laser's $1.99 cost, and you'll probably do it the first time you use it. Especially handy on books, by the way.

Need more info before spending your hard-earned money? Send me a note and I'll answer your questions.

My Top Five FREE iPhone Apps

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-01-29T09:37:08-08:00

Here are five free iPhone apps that I use all the time. Click the links to get more info via the Apple iTunes Store.

Christian Boyce's Top Five FREE iPhone Apps
NYTimes (Best app for news, reviewed by me here)
Mint (Best app for keeping track of your credit card and bank balances, reviewed by me here)
eReader (Best app for reading books, many of them free, reviewed by me here)
Rimshot & Crickets (Best app for doing "ba-doom-boom, kishhhh" after you say something funny)
BigOven (Best app for recipes)

This list does not include any of the very excellent set of standard iPhone apps (Maps, Mail, Calendar, etc.). I use those apps all the time too.

Interesting Dock Behavior

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-01-28T22:45:33-08:00

Pictured above: a Dock with the magnification feature turned on. This feature, which makes Dock icons squirm as you move your mouse over them, is absolutely adored by some people, but not by me, because a squirming target is harder to click on.

Tonight, for some reason, I thought it would be fun to experiment with the Dock (which was better in OS X 10.5 than it is in 10.6), and I found an interesting shortcut: if you hold the Control and Shift keys you will temporarily switch the Dock's magnification feature ON if it's set to be off, and OFF if it's set to be on.

Armed with this knowledge, you're now able to very gracefully and surreptitiously and temporarily turn the Dock magnification feature off when you use Macs with Dock magnification set to "on." This will be especially useful for those of you who make a living helping others with their Macs, double-especially if the Dock magnification "feature" drives you nuts. Oh wait, that's me. Never mind.

Apple iPad Info

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-01-27T14:02:51-08:00

You may not have heard but Apple introduced something called the iPad today. There are plenty of places for you to read about the not-shipping-for-two-months iPad, and I haven't had my hand(s) on one yet, so rather than write about it myself I'm just sending you a few links.

It certainly looks like an interesting device. Two things that jump out at me: Apple used its own chip to power the iPad-- they did not use an Intel chip, nor an AMD chip, nor any other kind of chip. I've always liked apple chips, by the way, though I prefer banana.

The other thing that jumps out at me is the lack of a camera. I sort of think it ought to have one. So much for doing video chats with it.

I wonder if it can print. I'll try to find out.

UPDATE: here is the video of Steve Jobs introducing the iPad. 93 minutes.

UPDATE AGAIN: I should have included a link to John Gruber's Daring Fireball website. Go there now and read everything he had to say about the iPad.

Save Time and Trouble with Tripit.com

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-01-27T10:53:12-08:00

You know that feeling you get when you suddenly discover that there's a much easier way to do things? That's the feeling I got when I "discovered" Tripit.com, because Tripit makes one of my more tedious tasks go away. Which task is that? The one where I type flight information into my calendar so I have it when I need it.

Anyone who's done it knows the routine: you make your travel plans online (typity-type, clickety-click), then you get to type even more into the calendar, trying very hard to be careful, but take it from me, it's hard to be perfect.

Enter Tripit.com. Go there and sign up for a free account. Then, when you make plane reservations and subsequently get a confirmation email from an airline, you forward the email to "plans@tripit.com." Tripit reads the email, puts the information into a handy little private space for you on their site, and then-- the best part-- they put your trip information into an iCal feed, which you subscribe to ONCE, and all of the information about the flying out and flying in is automatically part of your iCal calendar, forever and ever amen.

I made a Rule in Mail to automatically forward my Southwest Airlines "Ticketless Confirmation" emails to plans@tripit.com, and by golly it works. My calendar has ALL of the information-- flight numbers, departure times, arrival times, confirmation numbers, you name it-- and of course I can subscribe to the same iCal feed on my iPhone, so my iPhone's calendar is up to date too. You can change the information if you'd like, so the trip that Tripit titles "Oakland, CA 2/11/2010" can be retitled "MacWorld Expo SF 2010." That's what I did.

Tripit has a "pro" account but the free one is great as it is. If you fly frequently this is a no-brainer. Go to tripit.com now and sign up. You will save yourself a lot of typing, over and over and over. I wouldn't do any of the stuff that asks you to upload your email address book-- that will just irritate your friends-- but that's not required anyway. Just do the minimal free stuff, and you will reap the benefits time after time.

If you can't figure out how to subscribe to your Tripit calendar let me know. I can help you.

Bonus: if you use the USA Today's free iPhone app called "AutoPilot" you can connect to your Tripit calendar information very easily. Give that a whirl too.

How to Compress Movies for Email

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-01-21T14:32:35-08:00

I wrote a couple of days ago about Photo Booth and how you can use it to record a movie and then email it. It's easy, and it's fun-- so easy, and so fun, that just about all of you recorded a movie and emailed it to me. That's the good news.

The bad news is that these files are a little on the large side. But, there's more good news: you can easily compress a movie to less than half its original size while retaining almost all of the quality. All you need is "iSquint," a free download available by clicking here.

When you start iSquint the first time you'll get a sales pitch to upgrade to another program. Just say no. You'll then get a window that looks like this:

The settings are important. When you Optimize for iPod you get a movie that fits an iPod's screen just perfectly (that is, it's 320 pixels wide by 240 pixels tall). When you Optimize for TV you get a movie that's 640 x 480. Tiny Quality gives the smallest file size, while "Go Nuts" Quality gives the largest file size. I like "Standard." I also like "H.264 Encoding." I could explain what H.264 means but Wikipedia's already done that, so click this link and read all about it. All you really need to know is that H.264 is a kind of compression, and it works great. There's nothing better.

iSquint is really easy to use. Just drag a movie file into the big box (the one under "Drag files below."). Then click "Start." Your original movie will be untouched; a compressed copy will be created and saved in the same location as the original. In my experiments, my movies compressed almost in half under "Standard" Quality and almost by a factor of 4 if I went "Tiny." Choosing "Optimize for iPod" gives another 4x compression since iPod screens are 1/4 the screen dimensions of a Photo Booth-generated movie. Note the "Add to iTunes" button-- that will put your movie into iTunes, handy if you want to eventually get it onto your iPod or iPhone.

You can email the compressed movie using the drag-it-to-the-Mail-icon method I wrote about here.

Be aware that compressing a movie results in some reduction in quality. Here, for example, are three versions of the same frame in a movie.

First is from the original movie, the second is from one compressed with "Standard" settings, and the third is from one compressed with "Tiny" settings. Look around the eyes and the hair-- the original is sharper and has more detail. (The sound is better too, though you can't tell by looking at the picture.) You will have to experiment to find settings that work for you. Keep in mind that the settings that work great for one movie may not be so great on the next one. It's a case-by-case thing. Luckily, all you have to do is move the slider and click "Start" to see another variation.

(Note: if you've recorded a movie in Photo Booth it will be easiest to drag the movie to the Desktop, and from there into iSquint. The compressed movie will be put on the Desktop when the compression process is complete.)

Looking forward to seeing your new, smaller movies.

Apple's new i-thing

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-01-19T12:26:09-08:00

Everyone's asking me about this new "thing" from Apple, so I thought I'd answer all of you at once. First of all, no one outside of a select few at Apple know anything about Apple's not-yet-announced thing. We don't know what it's called, we don't know what it looks like, we don't know when it will be available, we don't know what it will cost. And we don't know what it will do. All we do know is that Apple sent out an invitation yesterday (I didn't get one) and that Apple will show their "latest creation" on January 27th, 2010.

Here's what the invitation looks like.

People are trying to find meaning in the colors, in the splashiness, etc. but all of it is guesswork. All of it.

My advice: wait until the 27th. Then we'll all know. However... I do have some thoughts.

If Apple does introduce a tablet-style computing device it will be far more than just an Apple version of Amazon's Kindle book-reading device. FAR more.
I would expect Apple to try to leverage the vast universe of iPhone apps, probably enabling you to run more than one app at a time on the tablet, to drag them around on the screen, and to resize them arbitrarily.
We already have great Apple products for when we have a desk or a table to work from (iMac, MacBook), and we already have iPhones for those times when we're on the go. There seems to be no need for something in between. You can bet that Apple has thought of this too. I expect Apple's tablet to include something very cool, which you and I will want desperately-- and it will not be available on any other device, including the iPhone. That will give you a reason to buy the tablet. My guesses: live video chatting, tablet to tablet-- or streaming TV and movies. Or both.

Calendar synching with your Mac? Of course. Address book synching with your Mac? Double of course. Weather/stocks/maps/wireless-- yes/yes/yes/yes. Something really incredible that I haven't thought of? Almost certainly yes.

A couple of years ago, my friend Dave asked me what I thought Apple would introduce at MacWorld Expo. I told him I didn't have any idea-- but I wanted two of them. That's how I feel about this January 27th Apple product intro. I can barely wait.

VIDEO: How to use Photo Booth

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-01-17T20:16:10-08:00

Doing a little experimenting today-- thought it might be fun to make a video showing how to use Photo Booth.

Click where it says "Click to Play." You MIGHT have to click a little triangular button after that-- look around, it's worth it. And no, I don't know why you might have to click that button. I'll try to find out.

Lower Prices for AT&T's iPhone plan

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-01-15T14:27:40-08:00

This just in: AT&T is cutting the price of their unlimited voice and data plan for the iPhone to $99. The old price was $129. There is no word (yet) about whether they will cut the price on the other, not-unlimited plans.

Existing iPhone users can switch to the cheaper plan by going to AT&T's website starting Monday January 18th, 2010. There is no fee for making the switch and the end date of your contract will not change. Basically, if your iPhone is on an unlimited plan, it's a no-brainer. Change to the $99 plan.

There is always the chance that AT&T will do this automatically for you but I wouldn't count on it.

Missing the Steve Jobs keynote

macman@christianboyce.com — 2010-01-06T22:03:18-08:00

In years past, the first week of January meant "incredibly cool and awesome" new products from Apple, presented by Apple CEO Steve Jobs during his keynote speech at MacWorld Expo. Apple's not going to MacWorld this year, and MacWorld's been moved to February anyway, and gee it feels like something's missing.

This video-- a condensed edition of a recent Steve Jobs talk-- isn't a substitute for the real thing, but it helps. Check it out.

Another Reason to Like Snow Leopard

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-12-09T14:21:14-08:00

Ever use the "Help" menu in 10.3 or 10.4. or 10.5? If you have, you know it's the slowest thing ever. But, in 10.6 (Snow Leopard), it's fast. Really fast. So, now, it's useful. If you'd previously given up on getting help from the Help menu, and you're now on 10.6, give it another try. You'll like it.

iCal College Football Bowl Calendar

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-12-08T21:42:24-08:00

It's time for the college football bowl games. Here's a handy iCal calendar with the entire schedule. It's updated to show you the most recent information (dates, times, TV network, and even the scores). Click the link, add it to your iCal calendar, remember to tell it to refresh (recommendation: daily), and you'll have the information at your fingertips. Or at least on your computer.

Thanks to DavidGagne.net for the calendar.

Address Book to Google Maps

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-12-06T16:24:39-08:00

Google Maps is fantastic, better than Mapquest in my opinion. If you're not using it you are missing out on a terrific service, and of course you can't beat the price (it's free). Enter maps.google.com into your browser, type in any address, and presto, you're looking at a map of that location. You're only a click away from getting directions, and traffic, and more. It's super.

Even more super is being able to bring up the map without typing in the address. That's what you can do if you use Apple's Address Book (the brown one whose icon is shown at the top of this hint). Bring up a contact in Address Book and click next to the address. If it's a home address, click where it says "Home." If it's a work address, click on the word "Work." You can see part of the word "Work" in grey in the picture below. That's where I clicked.

Select "Map this Address" and you're taken to Google Maps, where the address you clicked on is displayed on a map. Like so:

Isn't that cool?

(By the way, if you're wondering why your menu doesn't show "Make Envelope" it's because you don't have my custom "Make Envelope" AppleScript installed on your machine. It turns out that Apple allows us to create our own menu items that do anything we want them to do, and I thought it would be handy to be able to create an envelope by clicking on an address. So I did the programming and now I have the "Make Envelope" option on all of my machines. If you have an idea for something you'd like to do with an address send me an email and we'll figure out how to do it.)

Even More Stuff I Like: Cameras preference pane

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-12-02T23:12:09-08:00

One of the things I like about iPhoto is it kicks in automatically when I connect my camera. One of the things I don't like about iPhoto is it kicks in automatically when I connect my iPhone for synching or charging (iPhoto kicks in because it thinks of the iPhone as a camera, and wants to import its pictures). You might be thinking "Go into iPhoto's preferences and tell it not to connect automatically, as shown below"--

... but if I do that, iPhoto will NEVER launch automatically, and I usually want it to-- just not when I connect my iPhone. I do want iPhoto to open when I connect my camera, but I don't want iPhoto to open when I connect my iPhone. I want it both ways-- but how can I do that?

The answer is "You use the Cameras preference pane, available via this link." And guess what: it's free.

(Note: if you're using 10.6 (Snow Leopard) you have something like Cameras built in. It's in the Image Capture program, inside the Applications folder. You don't improve things by having two programs trying to control your cameras, so if you're using 10.6, find the Image Capture program, make your adjustments there, and forget about installing Cameras. If you're using 10.4 or 10.5, Cameras is the way to go.)

When you install Cameras you get a new item in your System Preferences, in the "Other" section. At first, it's pretty empty in there, but as you connect cameras to your Mac you'll get messages like this one:

(The "No Name" camera is the camera card in my Olympus. I want iPhoto to open when I connect that camera.)

I get a similar box when I connect my iPhone the first time, but I make a different choice:

I could leave it at that, but there are some other options. If you open the Cameras preference pane in System Preferences you see your list of cameras and the instructions for each one, like so:

You can click in the "When Connected" column for more options:

So... if you want some other program to launch when you connect your camera, Cameras can take care of that too. (So can Image Capture.)

I used Cameras until I updated to 10.6, and it worked great. As of 10.6 I'm using Image Capture, and it's also working great. Thanks to these programs, the days of iPhoto launching itself when my iPhone connects for a sync are over, and while I'm not sure that I'm doing anything productive with the few minutes I'm saving each day it's nice to think that maybe I am. Give this tip a try and save some time for yourself.

Hardware and Software Money-Savers

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-11-30T15:05:08-08:00

Amazon has Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home & Student Edition at $89.99, almost $60 off of the list price (The Apple Store sells it for $98). This is an especially good deal because you get three installation serial numbers in the package, meaning your $89.99 covers three machines. Microsoft Office is a little on the clumsy side but if you're getting documents in Word and Excel formats you'll be glad that you have Office installed.

Another good deal: Apple Airport Express for $94.95 (Apple's price: $99). Use this to extend your wireless network, and/or to play your iTunes music from your Mac through your home stereo-- wirelessly.

And another: iWork '09 Family Pack for $80.49. This is the 5-installation Family Pack, at only $1.49 over the single-user version at Apple. Apple charges $99 for the 5-user pack. Amazon sells the iWork '09 single user package for $72.99, if that's the one you need.

All in all, it pays to check Amazon's prices. Use the Amazon box at the left-hand side of this page to do your search, and simultaneously support the Blog.

Magic Mouse and 27-inch iMac in stock at Amazon

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-11-23T19:53:54-08:00

It took a few weeks but Amazon finally has the new Apple iMac 27 inch Quad-Core in stock. You can click this link to go straight there. The price is $1972.98, or $26.02 less than Apple charges... and you don't pay sales tax if you're in California, and there's no charge for the shipping either. When you consider the sales tax it costs you $210 more to buy it from the Apple store. The warranty is through Apple either way, so it seems a lot better to get it from Amazon. (Those of you not living in California should go through the motions of buying the iMac through Amazon to see what your total will be. Regardless, it's probably going to be less expensive than going directly through Apple.)

Amazon also has the new Magic Mouse, reviewed by me here a few days ago. You can click this link to go to the Magic Mouse page on Amazon. You get free shipping and no tax (in California, and maybe where you live too).

Note: purchases made on Amazon through the links above benefit The Boyce Blog. Such contributions-- which come from Amazon, not from you-- keep The Boyce Blog going, and are very, very much appreciated.

More Stuff I Like: Automatic Time Zone

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-11-21T09:39:25-08:00

Well looky here: another nifty improvement in the Date & Time preference pane, thanks to Snow Leopard! Finally, all of a sudden, and only in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, your Mac can show you the correct time for wherever you are-- automatically! Those of you who travel with a Mac laptop will appreciate this-- no more trips to the Date & Time preference panel to set the proper time zone. You do have to turn this feature on, so get in there and do it now!

Stuff I Like: Snow Leopard Date Options

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-11-19T08:31:45-08:00

I've been digging around in Snow Leopard, looking for something new, and I found something in the Date & Time preference panel. Finally, after years of waiting, we can display the day, the date, and the time in the menu bar, all at the same time! Until Snow Leopard, you got the day and the time, but not the date (not without clicking on the time). Now you get all three at once.

Here's what it looks like. No click required!

Maybe you're good at remembering the date. I'm not. I found myself heading to the menu bar to find out the date several times a day-- but not anymore! I will probably save myself hundreds of clicks per month. Not sure what I'll do with the clicks I'm going to save but it's nice to think about.

Anyhow, if you're on Snow Leopard, go to the Date & Time preference pane NOW and check the "Show Date" box as shown in the image below. A click saved is a click earned. Etc.
I know, I know: there are plenty of third-party ways to get the same effect. I think it's better that it's built-in, that's all. So check it out and save yourself some clicks.

Review: Apple's Magic Mouse

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-11-15T14:24:08-08:00

There it is: Apple's Magic Mouse (held by someone else's nicely manicured hand). I have one (a Magic Mouse, not a nicely manicured hand) and so far, so good. I've used it for a week and I'm happy. It's super-precise, it's wireless (yay), and there aren't any parts to get gummy and quit working. Plus it slides very well on the desk.

Setting up the Magic Mouse is easy, except for getting it out of the box. Generally speaking, unboxing an Apple product is a delight, something you want to share with a friend (putting it back in the box, taking it out again, over and over). Not so the Magic Mouse. But once out of the box, it's trivial to set up.

If you're using Mac OS X 10.6.2, you need only to turn the Magic Mouse on (it runs on two AA batteries, which are not only included, but installed at the factory). You can see the on-off switch at top right in the photo below. The Magic Mouse in the picture is on.

If you're using Mac OS X 10.5.8, you will need some software, available here. If you're using 10.4.11 you will not be able to use the Magic Mouse. Sorry Mom.

Everyone wants to know how it feels in the hand and the answer is "it doesn't." That is, you don't hold it in your hand, you hold it with your hand. You don't rest your hand on the Magic Mouse, you rest your hand (the heel of it) on the desk, and hold the Magic Mouse lightly. And it's comfortable that way.

The scrolling-via-the-touch-sensitive-surface is very convenient, and it's nice knowing that it's never going to get gunky. I use the scrolling feature all the time. I love that the Magic Mouse is wireless, and that it's not too heavy even with the batteries (it's barely heavier than the wired Apple Mouse it replaced). The only thing I don't like about the Magic Mouse is the name. Big deal.

The Magic Mouse has a few options: you can set it up to do a right-click, you can zoom, etc. The older Apple Mouse had more options but most of them were better left turned off, so really there is not much of a loss in the options department. Here's a look at the Preference Pane for the Magic Mouse, in Mac OS X 10.6.2:

Nice to know I have a ways to go before the batteries need replacing. Looks as if the batteries will last about three months at a time. I'll keep the wired mouse around just in case.

You can see from above that I turned off the "with momentum" feature. The idea is that you can scroll and if you're vigorous about it the scrolling will continue a bit after you stop. That quickly drove me crazy, not that it was a long drive. At the same time, others think it's the greatest thing ever. Nice that they give you the option.

The Magic Mouse costs $69. You get one for free when you buy a new iMac so if that's in your future don't bother buying a Magic Mouse separately. As of this writing, the Magic Mouse is very hard to find-- Apple doesn't have them online, and neither does Amazon. I'll post an update here when the Magic Mouse is widely available again.

UPDATE: Amazon has the Magic Mouse in stock. $69, free shipping. Click this link to get it.

I like the Magic Mouse and I imagine you will too.

For a video demonstration of the Magic Mouse click this link, courtesy of Apple.

Time to Upgrade to Snow Leopard

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-11-10T10:47:14-08:00

Apple released the 10.6.2 Snow Leopard update and it fixes a whole lot of issues (click the link and start the download while you read). I had been waiting for this update before moving to Snow Leopard, and I'm glad I did. Apple had already put out the 10.6.1 update, but that didn't address the problems that early adopters of 10.6 had been reporting. For those problems, we'd have to wait for 10.6.2, and now it's here. Armed with the 10.6.2 update, I installed 10.6 on my original Intel iMac (the white one), and then the 10.6.2 update, and also the HP Printers update, and everything is great. Printing is fast again, the iMac starts up quickly, Mail's loading speed is especially improved, and overall the iMac is running better than it was in 10.5.8.

If you have an Intel Mac of any sort and you've been waiting to install 10.6, now is a good time. There is always the chance that something that you use will not be compatible with 10.6, but if you make a backup first (please) you'll be able to revert to 10.5. There's a good list of compatible/not compatible programs at Macintouch.com-- worth your time to check it out.

It is always better to download the "Combo Update" (linked above) rather than a simple Software Update. So do it that way if you can. In fact, if you already did the Software Update, download the 10.6.2 Combo update and run it.

Given the advantages of 10.6 over 10.5, and the super-low cost ($29), upgrading to Snow Leopard (10.6) is a smart move. The only question really was when to do it. With 10.6.2's fixes in hand, the time to upgrade is now.

If you don't have a Snow Leopard disc you can buy Snow Leopard from Amazon and save a few bucks. Single user is $25, five-user Family Pack is $43.99. They ship for free.

All You Need is Command-L

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-11-07T11:31:28-08:00

According to the Beatles, All You Need is Love. If I had been a Beatle I would have suggested All You Need is Command-L because Command-L does so many things for a Mac user.

First, this Quiz:
Question: how can you tell when someone's used a Mac for a long time?
Answer: because he calls that crazy cloverleaf/open apple key on either side of the space bar "the Command Key." You can call it anything you want, but technically it's a Sevärdhet, an ancient Viking symbol used today by Scandinavian road-sign makers to signify "point of interest." Apparently, you can be driving in Scandinavia and all of a sudden there's a big Command key on a post on the side of the road. Sounds like fun to me. Read all about it.

So, what can Command-L do for you? Well let's see...
In the Apple Address Book, Command-L toggles between the Editing view and the non-Editing view. Faster and easier than reaching for the mouse and clicking "Edit."

In Preview, Command-L rotates the document to the left.

&In Safari, and in Firefox, Command-L sends focus to the address bar (the place where you normally click to type "christianboyce.blogspot.com" or possibly some other site). It also highlights everything in the address, so all you have to do is start typing. This is going to save you a LOT of time. Next time you want to load up some new web page, do Command-L, type the address, and hit Return. Bingo.

(Note: you can save even more time by NOT typing "http://www." You can save a bit more by not typing ".com" or dot-whatever. So, when you want to go to "http://www.apple.com" you can simply do Command-L, then type "apple" and then Return. If that DOESN'T work for you it's all because of your internet service. Send me an email and I will help you fix that problem, for free if you tell me you saw it on The Boyce Blog.)

Know any other Command-L tips? Add them here by clicking the "Comments" button.

FREE Mac Software

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-11-05T20:35:32-08:00

The people at MacHeist put together bundles of software at a low price. This time it's VERY low: $0. All you have to do is visit their site and sign up. For FREE you get...

ShoveBox (for storing information snippets, though I prefer Evernote)
WriteRoom (a nice little writing program)
Twitterific (very useful if you use Twitter at all)
TinyGrab (for sharing screenshots over the internet)
Hordes of Orcs (game)
Mariner Write (a very nice word processor)

For free, why not give these things a try? That's what I'm going to do. The offer expires on Wednesday the 11th, so get going and click this link.

Something New from Christian Boyce

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-11-05T12:23:24-08:00

We're introducing something new today: Managed Service from Christian Boyce. In a nutshell, you get the same great service as always, but you get it sooner and it costs you less. Click this link to read all about it.

Google Stuff You Didn't Know

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-11-01T16:18:12-08:00

When you want to something on the web I'll bet you head for Google. It's so easy, so fast, so powerful-- and so free! I'm sure you use Google all the time, and you're probably completely satisfied. So was I, until I did a little extra poking around. Turns out we're using just a tiny bit of Google's powers. For example...

Want a weather update?. Just type "weather" into the Google search box and hit Return. You get up to the minute weather, and a couple of days of forecasts. You don't have to type in your city-- Google knows where you are. (If you want to know the weather somewhere else, type the city's name or zip code in too.)

Want to check a stock? Type the symbol into the search box and hit Return.

Wondering how many feet in a furlong? So was I, until I asked Google. Sort of nice to be able to ask my question in plain English.

I could go on and on-- there are all kinds of questions that Google can answer for you. Movie times, airplane flight information, sports scores, package tracking. And more. Luckily, Google's provided a page called "Explore Google Search," which you can access by clicking here. Have a look. I'm sure you'll learn something.

Note: I could have titled this "Google Stuff I Didn't Know (until a little while ago)."

Bonus Google Tip for Safari Users
Save the time and trouble of moving the mouse up to the Search box in Safari's Toolbar by pressing Command-Option-F. Try it a few times and you'll be hooked.

iPhone Stocks App Tips

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-10-29T16:19:53-07:00

There's this thing called "The Stock Market" where people with extra money place bets on companies, and if things go right they cash out with more than they went in with. It's sort of like betting on the NFL, except it's legal in every state, and harder to handicap, and if you lose you can always wait around and hope that someday things will turn around and you'll end up winning. Anyway, Apple provides an app for Stocks on every iPhone, and this very day I "discovered" a couple of features I didn't know about.

Let's start with the basics: start up the app and you get this screen.

That's pretty simple: you can see, for example, that AAPL (Apple) went up $3.95 today, and GOOG (Google) went up $10.75 today-- a good day for both. But who had the better day, Apple or Google? Well, if you're My Mom the Math Major (MMMM), you can work the percentages out in your head, and you probably already have. For the rest of us, a simple tap on a green button (of course, they might be red-- that's when it's NOT a good day), and you see the day's gain as a percentage, like so:

It was a better day for Apple than for Google, but not by much. They basically rose with the rest of the market.

Tap a green (or red) button again, and you get this strange looking bit of info-- which turns out to be the "Market Capitalization" (or just "market cap"), the product of the share price times the number of outstanding shares. Wow, look at Apple go.

But that's not the half of it.

See that little chart across the bottom? I'm sure you've figured out that you can touch "1d" to show the day's ups and downs, "1w" to show the week's, etc. But did you know you could swipe left (or right) to get to other screens, with more info? Yup, you can. Try it and see. Here's what you get:

Swipe again, and you get a list of news article concerning the company. (In a nice touch, the three screens-- chart, info, and news-- go "all the way around" so you can keep swiping in one direction and come back around again to the beginning. Too bad this feature is missing on the iPhone's Home screens.)

Touch one of the stories and you're taken to the full story, in Safari. Here's an example:

This would have been enough for me to write about, but then I tried rotating the iPhone while in the Stocks app, producing this:

And THAT would have been enough for me, until for some reason I touched the chart, and then I touched it in two places, giving me THIS.

Amazing! Now it's easy to see the stock's performance: how much it went up, what that is as a percentage, and from when to when.

Try dragging your finger along the chart. It's fun, especially if you own Apple stock! Note: if you swipe left or right on this screen you will bring up the chart for your next stock.

Much of this is new since iPhone 3.0, but that's no excuse for only discovering it today! I guess I'll have to spend more time turning the iPhone sideways and touching and tapping everywhere as I search for hidden features I should have known by now.

(Did you learn something here? Click the Share button and tell a friend! Did you know all of this already? Send me an email and tell me.)

Another Time-Saving Safari Tip

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-10-27T22:58:03-07:00

Part 2 of a continuing series, apparently.

Ever come across a word you don't know on a web page? Unless you're my Dad, I'm sure this has happened to you. Assuming that you're not my Dad, when you do find a word you don't know, do you stop what you're doing and reach for the dictionary? I'll bet not. Luckily for the rest of us (the ones who aren't my Dad), Safari offers a shortcut to look up the word using the Mac's dictionary. All you do is hold the Control key and click on the word. You don't even have to select the word first.

Here's what it looks like when you do:

Slide down to "Look Up in Dictionary" and presto, it's done. (The dictionary came with your Mac, by the way. It's been sitting around, probably unused until now, in your Applications folder.)

Those other options are fun too: Search in Spotlight finds the clicked word in documents on your Mac, Search with Google looks up the word (or, if you've selected more than one word, it searches for that phrase), Copy copies, and Speech says the word out loud (you have to slide over a bit more to make that happen). Here's how it looks when you slide down to Speech:

If you've programmed your mouse to have a "Secondary Click" you can use that instead of Control-clicking. Many mice are set up to use a right click, like on a PC, to display the contextual menu, so you might try it yourself. You can change the way the right click works by going to System Preferences and then Mouse. Otherwise, it's Control-click for you, a two-handed move but still a lot faster than reaching for the dictionary.

Time-Saving Tips for Safari 4

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-10-25T22:35:52-07:00

You probably spend a lot of time with Safari. Use these tips and you'll have more time for other things.

Tip #1: Send a web page link via email
You would not believe how many people ask me how to do this. My own mother asked how to do this tonight (sorry, Mom-- I should have shown you this a long time ago!). Here's how simple it is:

Go to the web page in question
Choose File/Mail Link to This Page

That's it! Your Mac will create an email with the web page's address already in it. All you do is address it and click the Send button. Since you will probably already be on the desired web page this tip boils down to a single step. Can't get simpler-- or faster-- than that.

Tip #2: Open another window
Believe it or not: you can have multiple windows open in Safari. You can have as many as you'd like, and they can all be showing different sites. This can be very efficient, saving you the time you might spend clicking the "Previous" and "Next" buttons and waiting for pages to load.

One way to make a new Safari window: choose "New Window" from the File menu (shortcut: Command-N). Another way to do it: hold the Command key down while you click a link in a web page (super handy when you're clicking links from a Google search). If you don't get a new window, it's because you got a new tab, same idea with less clutter. You can adjust this in Safari's Preferences, under "Tabs." Try checking and unchecking that top checkbox-- its effect will be listed in the dialog box.

Tip #3: Reduce the time you spend typing web addresses
The odds are that you spend too much time typing each web address into Safari. Here are a couple of ways to reduce the amount of typing that you do, saving you GOBS of time.

Set your home page to something you like. There's no point in having landing on Apple's website every time you launch Safari if all you're going to do is go somewhere else right away. Pick a site you go to a lot and set it as your home page (Safari/Preferences.../General/Set to Current Page).
Don't click at the end of the current URL and then carefully delete all the way back to "http://www." That takes too long. Instead, click on the "favicon" (the little picture just before the "http"), selecting the entire URL-- and then type right over it (no need to hit Delete).

And, when you type, don't bother typing "http://www" and don't bother typing ".com". Safari will put those in for you. In many cases, you can simply type something like "amazon" or "dealnews" or "christianboyce", then hit Return on the keyboard, and you'll go straight to that site. (If that doesn't work, as it won't for most Verizon internet subscribers, add the ".com" (or the ".org" or whatever) before hitting Return.

(These tips are for Safari 4-- if you don't have it, go get it, for free, using this link.)

Best Free iPhone Dictionary

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-10-21T23:29:52-07:00

You really ought to have a dictionary on your iPhone. You can get this one-- Dictionary.com-- for free, and it's terrific, so what are you waiting for? Click this link and start the download. It's big (35 megabytes, not that it will make much of a dent in your 8 or 16 or 32 gigabyte iPhone), so do it from your computer and sync it into the iPhone. May as well start the download while you read the rest of this review.

(With a name like "Dictionary.com" you might guess that you'd need an internet connection to use this program. Good guess, but wrong. Only the Word of the Day and the audio pronunciations require an internet connection. FYI.)

You know how people are always saying that you can't get something for nothing? Next time they tell you that show them Dictionary.com on your iPhone. Look at what you get for nothing:

275,000 word dictionary
80,000 word thesaurus
Audio pronunciation
Word of the day
Handy list of recently looked-up words

Seems like a lot to me.

Let's look at some pictures. Here's how the program looks when you start it up: very simple and clean. The buttons across the bottom are easy to figure out, and obviously the big box at the top is where you type the word you're looking for.

To look up a word, touch either the Dictionary or Thesaurus button, and then enter your word. A list of matching words appears as you type. Here's what it looked like as I typed the first bit of "recession":

This "live search" is a real time-saver as it means you don't have to completely type out a word. Type just enough for Dictionary.com to display it in the list (which scrolls) and then touch it. It's faster to touch a word in a list than to type it all the way out, especially for the kinds of words you're likely to be looking up in a dictionary.

Here's how it looks after I touched "recession" in the list. The speaker icon does what you think it does: it says the word out loud. Very handy, and a nice use of the technology.

Here's something nice: when you touch the Thesaurus button, it remembers the word you were looking up in the dictionary. So you don't have to type it again. A small thing, but it could have been overlooked. Way to go, Dictionary.com!

Gee, look at all of those ways to say "recession" without actually saying it. Good to know that there are so many other ways to describe our current economic situation. I like "big trouble" the most.

Touch the Recent button and you see a list of the words you've looked up recently, and how. The blue circles with white chevrons were looked up in the dictionary. The yellow circles with the white chevrons were looked up in the thesaurus. The blue circle with the white "w" means "Word of the Day" (see below). Touch any of the words and of course you will look them up again. Touch the symbols in the circles to "do that" again. Easy and obvious.

Finally, here's what happens when you touch the Word of the Day button. Actually, it's only what happens on October 21st, 2009. Your word is going to be different because you're going to be touching the button on a different day. I'm sure you get the idea.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the Dictionary.com iPhone app. Simple, easy to use, handy, and free-- without ads, other than the entire app being an ad for the very useful www.dictionary.com website. Your download should be finished by now, so plug in that iPhone and sync.

New Apple Stuff, Today!

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-10-20T20:58:38-07:00

Actually, some of this stuff isn't really "new." It's more like "revised." But hey.

And most of this stuff wasn't in the stores today, though it will be in about a week. I found that out by visiting a few Apple Stores this afternoon, in search of a Magic Mouse. I'll get one, and when I do, I'll review it here. That looks to be about a week away.)

I couldn't find a new iMac (or a Magic Mouse) anywhere, but I did see the new MacBook at the Apple Store in Santa Monica and there are a few notable differences between this one and the one it replaces:

It's shinier
It has the no-button multi-touch trackpad, like the MacBook Pros
There's no FireWire port at all
The bottom has a no-slip texture coating on it (no rubber feet to fall off)
250 GB hard drive vs. 120 in the old one
It has a longer-lasting battery
Curvier shape (looks more like the MacBook Pros, though still on the plastic-y side)

Here are a few notable similarities between this machine and the one it replaces:

Same $999 price
Same 13 inch screen (1280 x 800 pixels)

All in all, it's better than the machine it replaces, but not wildly, fantastically better. If you want a new Mac laptop this is the cheapest way to go, and based on the specs it gives the $1199 13-inch MacBook Pro pretty good competition. Unless you can't live with a plastic laptop (or if you need a FireWire port) the new $999 MacBook looks like a better deal by far.

I'll write more about the new iMacs and Mac Minis when I get more information, but in the meantime here are a few nuggets of info:

The Magic Mouse looks to be really, really cool. And every new iMac comes with one
The Time Capsule, and the Airport, were updated today too (faster, and longer range)
The new iMacs can take up to 16 gigs of RAM (4 gigs are standard)
The 27-inch iMac is wall-mountable (and it's bigger than any TV my family has ever owned)
The new iMacs come standard with a no-numeric-keypad wireless keyboard
The new iMacs come with an SD card slot (for your camera card, unless your camera card isn't an SD)

(By The Way: It must be fun to announce a record-setting quarter on Monday, and then put out a whole slew of new products on Tuesday. I wonder what they'll do on Wednesday.)

(It must also be fun to put out a whole bunch of new stuff without any advance notice at all, and without making any big deal about it, as if this is something they do every day at Apple so it's hardly worth mentioning.)

Anti-Glare Film for the iPhone

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-10-18T22:38:48-07:00

Power Support Anti-Glare Film is the best $14.95 you can spend on your iPhone. It does a great job of cutting glare, it protects your iPhone's screen, it cuts down on fingerprints, and it feels great as you tap and drag. You ought to get some. They come two to a package so find a friend and split the cost. Here's an Amazon link to the Power Support Anti-Glare Film Set for iPhone 3G/3GS, and here's a link to the Power Support Anti-Glare Film Set for the original iPhone. Get the right one: the sizes are just slightly different.

I wrote about Power Support's anti-glare film in August of 2008, when I was using it on my original iPhone, and I loved it then. When the iPhone 3GS came out I thought I'd give the 3GS' new "oleophobic" screen a try without using the film, with bad news/good news results. The bad news was the iPhone 3GS' screen picked up fingerprints like crazy. The good news was they were easy to wipe off, on (for example) a pants leg. The other bad news was the glare on the screen was distracting, and the other other bad news was the screen wasn't protected from scratching. All that, and it didn't feel nice to drag my finger across it.

Today, after being every-so-slightly irritated with glare and smudges every time I used my 3GS, I finally applied the Power Support Anti-Glare Film. It's fabulous, better than I remembered, and I am kicking myself for not doing this sooner. No glare, smudges are a thing of the past, it feels great under my finger, and there's at least some protection against a scratched screen. Worth the $14.95, and more.

A Boyce in the Wilderness

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-10-15T07:31:07-07:00

Fifteen months and 120 blog entries ago I started writing The Boyce Blog. One of the reasons I did it was to experiment with the blogging concept, in particular how a single person's writings-- a voice in the wilderness-- would be discovered out on the web. How long would it take? Who would the readers be? Would they come back for more? We've figured that out, and more. Now we want to see how things go if I come right out and ask. So here goes.

First, if you find The Boyce Blog interesting, informative, fun to read, or anything else positive, would you please use the "Share" button and tell a friend? You can "Share" this site via email, Facebook, Twitter, and a whole lot of other ways. Start by either mousing over or clicking the button.

Second, if you're using Twitter, and you'd like to know when new Boyce Blog entries are posted, it would make great sense to follow me on Twitter. We offer discounts and extra timely tips via Twitter, more than just the Blog, so it's in your best interest to sign up. It's free, and it's fun. Start with this link.

Finally, if you're an Amazon customer, you might be interested in knowing that Amazon purchases originating on this site provide support to The Boyce Blog, at no cost at all to you. Just start your Amazon shopping by either searching in this box or by clicking anywhere on it and Amazon will know you came from here. It all adds up and we appreciate your support.

Amazon.com Widgets

iPhone 3.1.2 Update

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-10-08T18:27:33-07:00

Apple released updated iPhone software, version 3.1.2, this very afternoon. The previous version was 3.1 and no I don't know what happened to 3.1.1. This update takes a lot less time than the 3.1 version and it is supposed to help the iPhone to wake up from sleep more reliably, to connect to the AT&T cellular network more reliably, and to show video without crashing more reliably. I never saw any of those problems but I guess someone did, and the new software is here to fix it.

Assuming you want the update, which is free, all you do is connect your iPhone to your computer with the USB cable, wait for iTunes to launch, click on your iPhone in the left-hand side of iTunes, and then "Check for Update." It's a big button-- you can't miss it-- and it looks like this:

Click it, follow the directions, and you're all set. You will be asked at the end whether you want to update your carrier settings, and you do.

The whole process took about half an hour for me, and my iPhone seems to work at least as well with this update as it did without, so I say go ahead and do it.

Make the Web More Readable

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-10-06T22:33:40-07:00

Don't you hate it when you're trying to read a story on a web page, and everything else on that page is trying to distract you? "Click here!" they say. "No, here!" "And here!" It's enough to drive you bonkers.

Here's an example, taken from tonight's USAToday.com. More than half of the page is a distraction.

It would be nice if there was a way to hide everything that wasn't the story. Turns out there's a way, and it's called "Readability." And it's free.

Here's that same USAToday.com page, after the Readability treatment:

Quite a bit nicer. And all it took was a click.

There's some one-time setting up to do, but it's only a couple of steps, and from then on it takes just a click to magically transform a messy web page into a readable form. You don't have to go through the setup for every site-- you do it once and then it just works, for any site. Setup takes only a couple of minutes, and here's how you do it.

First, go to the Readability page on the Arc90 website. Here's what it looks like.

Once there, follow the two-step instructions. You'll end up with a customized "bookmarklet" on your web browser's bookmarks bar (it will look like a regular bookmark). Now you're ready to modify a web page.

Just for fun, let's test with the same site I showed above (click the link). That brings up the cluttered, distracting page. Now click your "Readability" bookmarklet, on the bookmarks bar. Presto, change-o! The site changes to the "readable" version. Pretty darned neat.

Most of the time it works like magic. Sometimes it doesn't, and I guess that's why Arc90 calls Readability "an experiment." When it doesn't work, or when you just want to go back to the way things were before the Readability treatment, you can click a button at the top left of the converted page to reload the original page. There's no harm in trying as you're only converting your own local copy of the page, so why not give it a whirl? I use Readability all the time and once you try it I think you'll like it.

How to Eject a Stuck Disc

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-10-04T10:22:08-07:00

(above: international "eject" symbol, at the top right of a keyboard near you)

One of these days a CD or a DVD is going to get stuck inside your Mac. That's a total drag, but it's easy enough to get it out. Try these moves before you bring it to the Apple Store:

Press the Eject key and keep it down a little longer than usual. No?
Restart your Mac, and right after you hear the chimes hold down the mouse button. No mouse button? Hold the clicker on the trackpad. No clicker, because you have some new-fangled multi-touch trackpad? Press and hold where you would normally press for a click. Keep it pressed until the disk comes out.
Restart your Mac, and right after you hear the chimes hold down the Eject key until the disk comes out.

If the disk is still stuck send me an email and we'll figure out what to do next.

NFL Prime Time iCal calendar

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-10-01T16:26:00-07:00

I wanted an iCal calendar of the prime-time NFL games (Monday Night Football, the Sunday night game, the occasional Thursday night game) but I couldn't find one online. I did find the entire NFL schedule, but that was way more than I wanted. Solution: I imported the entire NFL schedule, then wrote an AppleScript to remove every game whose starting time was before 4 PM. Simple. Here's the script, for educational purposes...

-- By Christian Boyce, macman@christianboyce.com

tell application "iCal"
set the_games to every event in calendar "NFL"
repeat with i from 1 to (count of the_games)
set the_start_date to start date of item i of the_games
set the_day to word 1 of (the_start_date as string)
set the_hour to character 1 of time string of the_start_date as string
--
if the_hour is not greater than 3 then
set the_event_id to uid of item i of the_games
delete event id the_event_id of calendar "NFL"
end if
--
end repeat
end tell

and here's the NFL Prime Time calendar, ready for you to click on and import.

Note: you will get the chance to put this calendar's events into one of your existing iCal calendars. That's probably not a good idea. Choose the "New Calendar" option when asked and I think you'll be happier.

Thanks to http://www.southendzone.com/ for the entire NFL schedule in iCal form.

Buying an iMac? Wait a week

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-09-29T09:54:40-07:00

All signs point to a revised/renewed/refreshed iMac coming very very soon. If you can wait, wait.

MMS iPhone Update

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-09-26T21:51:52-07:00

MMS: noun. Abbreviation for Multimedia Messaging Service, an enhancement to the SMS (Short Messaging Service). In English: with MMS, you can still "text" someone, but now you can send a picture, or a video, or a sound.

This feature was part of Apple's 3.0 upgrade a few months ago, and lots of people have been using it ever since-- except not in the United States, where AT&T couldn't get its network ready in time. AT&T is ready now, and you can start using MMS today. Unless you're using an original iPhone, in which case you can't. Sorry about that. Those are AT&T's rules.

Here's what you need to do.

Connect your iPhone to your Mac with a cable. iTunes should start automatically. (If it doesn't, launch iTunes yourself)
Click on your iPhone in the left-hand pane of iTunes.
Look for an "Update" button. Click it.
You will probably see a window like this one:

Click Update Settings, turn off your iPhone, turn it back on, and you're ready to go. (The turning off and turning on is very important.)

After the restart, start the Messaging app, as if you were going to text someone. You'll see a camera icon next to where you type-- that's new. If you touch it you'll get a chance to use the camera to take a photo or video, or to choose an existing photo (or video). You get to write a note to go with it, and then you can send it. Yay.

Too bad that it doesn't always work the way you want it to. What you're expecting, I imagine, is that the person on the other end gets your message, complete with photo or video. A lot of the time that's exactly how it will work. Sometimes, though, it won't. The reason: the person on the other end doesn't have a new enough phone. How are you supposed to know what kind of phone the other person has? Beats me. Luckily it doesn't really matter because you can always use your iPhone to send pictures via email, just as you've been doing all along. But, if you know the other person has a modern phone, MMS can be sort of handy. And fun.

Your Appointments, Sir

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-09-21T14:28:00-07:00

Make your Mac read your appointments to you each day, out loud.

Great Deal on Microsoft Office 2008

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-09-20T10:33:58-07:00

Amazon is discounting the Home and Student Edition of Microsoft Office 2008. Save $44.58 as compared to Apple's price.

Genius Mix: cool new iTunes feature

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-09-20T00:54:40-07:00

Genius Mixes are cool! Part of iTunes 9.

Your Photo on NationalGeographic.com

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-09-16T19:09:02-07:00

Get published (but not paid) by National Geographic.

Sports Calendars for iCal and iPhone

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-09-16T11:31:04-07:00

Free, updated calendars for your favorite sports teams, right on your iPhone and Mac.

iPhone 3.1 Update

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-09-13T21:47:00-07:00

Another update for the iPhone, with some neat new features.

Great deal on iWork '09

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-09-13T11:07:55-07:00

iWork '09, at a discount: $20 off via Amazon.

Apple Special Event Recap

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-09-10T22:45:10-07:00

Apple’s special event came and went yesterday-- pretty interesting stuff, especially if you spend your time rearranging your music. The highlights: a new version of iTunes, and iPod nanos with video cameras. Details follow.

Apple Event September 9th

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-09-07T21:49:30-07:00

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Scroll through Mail messages the easy way

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-09-04T10:29:26-07:00

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Time Machine to the rescue

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-29T13:42:23-07:00

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Snow Leopard: I say "Wait."

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-29T12:58:25-07:00

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Command-D, your time-saving friend

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-26T21:00:27-07:00

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Snow Leopard Highlights

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-25T14:26:11-07:00

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Snow Leopard, available August 28th

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-24T15:43:38-07:00

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More About the Dock (part 2)

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-22T16:36:35-07:00

Create an email with an attachment in just one click-and-drag operation.

More About the Dock (part 1)

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-17T20:21:53-07:00

Save time and trouble with these handy Dock tips.

Customize Safari's Toolbar

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-12T00:12:34-07:00

Add buttons to make text larger (or smaller), to “auto-fill” your name and address into forms, and more.

Bigger Wednesday

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-11T20:58:42-07:00

Our first one-hundred-visitors day. Read all about it. Thanks for being a reader!

iPhone Tip of the Year

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-05T13:34:44-07:00

Save a ton of time with this super-tip.

Trivia Time: Mac OS X Cats

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-02T10:42:58-07:00

Something to talk about with your Mac friends: the cat-names for every version of OS X.

Snow Leopard is coming

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-02T09:01:48-07:00

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iPhone 3G vs. iPhone 3GS

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-07-26T21:36:29-07:00

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It's "iPhone 3GS," not "iPhone 3G S"

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-07-26T20:35:20-07:00

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Newspapers Around the World

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-07-24T17:22:06-07:00

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Take better pictures with your iPhone

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-07-22T00:38:49-07:00

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Look over there

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-07-16T10:50:51-07:00

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Charge your iPhone the RIGHT way

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-07-15T19:39:37-07:00

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iPhone Maps Super-Tips

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-07-14T21:49:54-07:00

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New York Times iPhone news reader

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-07-09T22:27:56-07:00

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Safari 4 Tip of the Day

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-07-07T12:21:26-07:00

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Great deal on VirusBarrier X5

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-07-02T10:27:58-07:00

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Interesting Airport-HP AiO interaction

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-07-01T21:25:28-07:00

I hate to sound like a broken record-- I mean, a corrupted MP3-- but HP’s Mac software is the worst. Love their printers, love their scanners, hate their software. Ugh.

Anyhow, they do make some interesting machines, and one of them is the HP All in One (AiO) Photosmart 3310. It prints, it scans, it faxes, and it copies-- and it can do it all over a network. It’s pretty unusual to be able to scan over a network, and in practice you still have to walk over to the 3310 to put your stuff on the glass so all you really get scan-wise is the convenience of being able to scan without connecting your laptop to the scanner with a cable. That’s nice-- when it works. When it doesn’t work, like it didn’t yesterday, it’s the pits.

The situation: Apple Time Capsule serving as the wireless base station, with firmware 7.4.1 on it. HP AiO Photosmart 3310 connected to the Time Capsule with an Ethernet cable. MacBook Pro connected to the Time Capsule wirelessly (802.11n, you geeks). I could print but I couldn’t scan. Every time I tried to scan I got a message about “unable to contact the 3100.” That’s nice.

I uninstalled the HP software using their own uninstaller. Then I found about thirty more pieces of HP software that the installer left behind (I also found a four-page HP document that tells how to delete the software, which is everywhere). My suspicion was that something was corrupt and that completely deinstalling, then reinstalling the latest version of HP’s software, would solve the problem.

Turns out I was wrong. After all of that the scanner still didn’t work over the network. Hmm.

My Friend Google helped point me in the right direction: the problem involved the firmware on the Time Capsule. Very interesting. I tried upgrading to 7.4.2-- no good. Then I rolled back to 7.3.2... and it worked. I think most of us see that orange light blinking on the Time Capsule and think “let’s do the upgrade, it will make things better” but in this case, no.

I can’t remember seeing another manufacturer’s stuff break when Apple does upgrades (other than La Cie’s, come to think of it). If you have a choice, I’d steer clear of HP, unless you are willing to put up with things that stop working for no obvious reason. Or unless you like having me in your office fixing things. In that case, then by all means get an HP. Or several.

Barcode Scanner app for iPhone

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-06-25T16:40:12-07:00

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iPhone 3.0 software-- go get it

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-06-24T21:45:09-07:00

If you buy a new iPhone you get the latest iPhone system software (iPhone OS 3.0) and thatt lets you some pretty cool things:

Cut, copy, and paste
Landscape keyboard for email, text messages, etc.
Spotlight search of email, address book, etc.
Voice memos

... and lots more. The neat thing is, you can put the new iPhone software on an older iPhone-- for free. It’s fine with me if you quit reading right now and go do it.

In case you need instructions:
1. Connect your iPhone to your Mac with the USB cable.
2. Sync your iPhone (this creates a fresh backup).
3. Click the “Check for Updates” button in iTunes and get the 3.0 software
4. Download the update and let Apple (and time) do the rest.

Click here to see a list of the new features in iPhone OS 3.0 and to find out which of the features will work on your phone.

iPhone 3G S-- it's great!

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-06-21T20:37:13-07:00

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Palm Pre-- not for me

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-06-14T16:22:14-07:00

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Safari 4-- free, and great

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-06-10T14:03:30-07:00

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WWDC Keynote Speech

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-06-08T19:59:28-07:00

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Rumor Roundup

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-06-07T21:14:43-07:00

Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) starts tomorrow in San Francisco. WWDC is an annual gathering of programmers who create applications for the Mac and the iPhone, hosted by Apple, and it’s a very big deal. It costs $1000 to attend, which is also a very big deal, and that explains why I’m not there this year. That, and my iPhone application programming is taking longer than I thought it would. Wait for next year.

Anyhow, with WWDC comes a lot of press coverage, and with that comes a lot of guessing what we’ll see and hear tomorrow during the opening keynote speech. Yes, we could just wait until tomorrow and know exactly what we saw and heard, but what fun is that? Here’s what I think MIGHT happen tomorrow. If any of this stuff turns out to be true remember you read about it here. If it doesn’t come true forget I mentioned it.

Game-Changing Rumor: Apple will take advantage of the attention and introduce a new iPhone-- this one with the camera on the front. Primary use: video chatting. If you’ve use iChat to do video chats on your Mac you know how cool this is. To be able to do it on a cell phone? Incredible. (This is my own personal rumor-- I think I’m the first to mention it.)

If they do come out with video chat on the iPhone they’ll change the name of Palm’s new Pre to “Post.” As in “mortem.” Sure was a nice two days you had there, Palm.

Interesting Feel-Good Human-Interest Rumor: Steve Jobs will make an appearance. The betting line on this is about 2-1 in favor. Jobs is officially expected back June 30th but with everyone watching he might come on stage, hopefully a little heavier than last time we saw him.

Boring, Evolutionary Rumor: new iPhones with more memory, faster processors, and the exact same appearance will be introduced, taking the place of the current iPhone 3G. You won’t be able to tell the new ones from the old ones but they’ll be better and cost the same.

The keynote speech kicks off at 10 AM Monday, June 8th 2009, about 12 hours from now. There’s no live coverage of the speech but you can do what I do and get updates from someone planted in the audience. Try this link (http://www.macrumorslive.com/) and let’s see how it goes. If you miss the live updates you can usually watch replays of Apple keynotes a little later in the day, and I’ll have a link to this one as soon as they make it available.

iPhone App of the Day

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-06-04T19:45:12-07:00

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Two ways to get a free iPod Touch

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-06-02T14:14:37-07:00

Apple’s giving away an iPod Touch with purchase of a MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or iMac. Actually, it’s a rebate thing, so you have to pay for it first, then submit the receipt, and wait for your money to come back. And, you can only take advantage of the deal if you’re going to college, or work at a college, or something like that. You can read all about it here.

If you don’t qualify for the rebate you may be interested in an offer from another company: Ferrari. They are giving away an iPod Touch with purchase of every Scuderia Spider 16M. Here are the details on that. You might want to hurry as I hear that they are only making 499 of these cars and when they’re gone, they’re gone. It’s a convertible, by the way. Here’s a picture.

No matter how you get it, even if you have to pay for it, an iPod Touch is a groovy device. I would wait until Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference kicks off June 8th before buying one because there just might be a new model coming out soon-- and if there is, we’ll learn all about it June 8th. Watch this space for further information.

iWork '09 Missing Manual

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-05-29T20:11:58-07:00

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FREE job-hunting AppleScript

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-05-21T15:55:35-07:00

You might not have heard but there’s a recession on. People are looking for work. Even I, the great and powerful Christian Boyce, am being a little more proactive about being gainfully employed.

I had the brilliant idea of searching the job postings on www.craigslist.org every day for Mac-related stuff, but quickly found that craigslist is sort of picky about search terms, and if you aren’t careful, you’ll miss stuff. For example, if you’re looking for AppleScript jobs, and someone’s posted one that says “Wanted: AppleScripter” you WON’T find the job if you search for “AppleScript.” Don’t ask me why-- that’s just the way it is. Search for AppleScripter, and you find it. Search for AppleScript, and you don’t. (Search for “Apple” and you do. Search for “Apples” and you don’t.)

Frankly, I don’t quite understand it. But, understanding it is not our job here, and while it is tempting to try to figure out why craigslist works the way it does, it would be tangential to my original goal, which is to search for jobs on craigslist. Related, but off on a tangent.

I determined that if I searched for these terms I’d find what I wanted:

Apple
AppleScript
AppleScripter
Scripter
Mac
Macintosh
iPhone

That’s seven searches. Doable, but then I decided it would be nice to search craigslist in Austin, TX (austin.craigslist.org) as well as craigslist in Los Angeles, CA (losangeles.craigslist.org). Twice as many cities means twice as many searches-- now up to 14, and I could see that this would not be a lot of fun after the first day or two. And remember, I wanted to do this every day.

So, what do we do when we have a repetitive task? One option: pass it to someone else. That gets it out of my hands, but it’s not reasonable to expect anyone to do 14 searches perfectly every day. Mistakes get made when you have so much to do.

The correct answer, of course, is to make an AppleScript. Talk about practicing what you preach!

Here’s what I wrote, word for word. You can copy this script, paste it into Script Editor (you have it-- look in the AppleScript folder inside your Applications folder), and run it. You can change the cities and the search terms as you wish. (You can even change it to look for things other than jobs. I can help you with that.)

The script:

-- AppleScript by Christian Boyce, to search craigslist.org for jobs
-- Original version written May 21st, 2009.
-- May be copied and modified as desired. Let me know if you find it handy.
-- Write me at macman@christianboyce.com
--
set the_cities to {"losangeles", "austin"}
set the_search_terms to {"apple", "applescript", "applescripter", "scripter", "mac", "macintosh", "iPhone"}
--
tell application "Safari"
activate
repeat with a_city in the_cities
repeat with a_search_term in the_search_terms
make new document at end of documents
-- the next two lines belong together-- from “set” to “a_search_term”
set URL of document 1 to "http://" & a_city & ".craigslist.org/search/jjj?query=" & a_search_term
end repeat
end repeat
end tell

You can almost read it like a book. The gray italicized stuff is just comments, notes for us so that down the road we remember what we were doing. We set up a list of cities, using the terms craigslist uses in its URLs. Then we set up a list of search terms. Then, starting with the first city, we tell Safari to open a new window (document) and put a certain URL into it. (The first URL is “http://losangeles.craigslist.org/search/jjj?query=apple”.) And then we make another window for the next search term, then another etc. until we’ve done all the search terms for the first city. Then we go back and do it all for the second city (in this case, Austin).

The whole thing takes about 8 seconds to load 14 pages here. Plenty fast-- a lot faster than doing it by hand, and of course there are no typos.

The nice thing about this script is it’s easily modified. If I decide to search San Francisco, or Dallas, or San Diego, or Sacramento, all I have to do is add those cities to my city list (“the_cities”). If I want to search for other kinds of jobs (“snake handler”, “exotic dancer”) I can easily add those to my search terms (“the_search_terms”).

It’s going to save us a lot of time over here. Copy it and modify it for your own purposes (and if we apply for the same job remember who wrote the script for you).

10.5.7 update

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-05-14T00:22:30-07:00

Apple released the 10.5.7 update yesterday, and while it has worked fine for me on two Macs (iMac Intel 1.83 GHz, and MacBook 2.2 GHz) I have read about quite a few issues that others are having with it. As usual, it’s impossible to make sense of it all because the people who have problems are the ones more likely to write to websites such as Macintouch and MacRumors to tell about their experiences, but just to be on the safe side why not have me do the update for you. That way, if anything goes wrong, you’ll have someone there (me) to make it right.

There are benefits to 10.5.7. The most important one to me is it fixes a bug in Apple’s Mail program-- a bug that gradually slows your Mac way, way down when Mail is left running for a long time. I have not seen any new or different features in 10.5.7 and Apple is not advertising any, so maybe it really is all bug fixes. Anyhow, I’m glad I did the update.

If you want to apply the update on your own be sure that your machine is in good shape before you apply the update. Restart your machine, quit any programs that launched as startup, then run Disk Utility and repair permissions. If you have problems with Disk Utility it would not be wise to do the 10.5.7 update. If you don’t have trouble, go ahead and update.

The best way to do the update is to get the so-called “Combo” update. It’s bigger than the update that comes when you do Software Update under the Apple Menu, which means it takes longer to download and install, but I’d use the Combo update anyway. Applying a Combo update will reinstall system pieces that have somehow gotten lost, in addition to updating the machine to 10.5.7, and generally speaking the Combo update is the way to go. Takes a little longer, but worth it.

Here’s the link to the 10.5.7 Combo update. Remember to quit all of your programs before you do the installation.

Call me if you’re stuck-- preferably, before you’re stuck.

Stuff I Like, part 2

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-05-09T21:04:08-07:00

It’s taken nine months but here, finally, is Stuff I Like, part 2. (Stuff I Like, part 1 was about PowerSupport Anti-Glare Film-- and I still like it.)

You can read all about these programs at their websites, so I’m not going to go into great detail here. I will give you a short summary and some special features I especially like.

First up: 1Password. Remembers your passwords for logging into various websites. Works with Safari, Firefox, and a couple of other browsers and you can switch back and forth between them and 1Password works regardless. Generates strong passwords if you want it to. Lets you create “Identities” such as Home and Work for filling in web forms with one click. Lets you create secure notes. Synchronizes across machines and with the iPhone. Price: $39.95 (iPhone app is free). Free trial download.

Next up: RapidWeaver. Web-site creation tool. Lots of pretty templates, fairly easy to use (much easier than DreamWeaver, about the same as iWeb). Something like Apple’s iWeb but a little more expandable. Used to create this very site. Price: $79.00, free trial download.

Last but not least: VMware Fusion. Allows you to install Windows on your Mac. Much more stable and trouble-free than Parallels. Does not require a reboot like Apple’s Boot Camp. Easy installation procedure. Price: $79.99, free trial download.

More to come, as I find more Stuff I Like.

Billion Apps contest

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-04-10T10:36:02-07:00

Apple’s iPhone App Store is closing in on one BILLION downloads. From now until the billionth download, everyone who downloads anything from the App Store will be entered into a drawing for a gob of cool prizes ($10,000 iTunes gift card, iPod Touch, MacBook Pro, lunch with C. Boyce, etc.). Click here for the details.

Bigger is Better: Mail

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-04-07T10:53:22-07:00

(Part II of a series)

So, we made Safari bigger. Now Mom wants her email bigger too. But, as before, we can’t simply choose a lower resolution in the Displays preference panel (Apple menu/System Preferences.../Displays), because doing it that way has the side effect of making a flat-panel Mac’s screen a little blurry.

Mom uses Apple’s Mail program. Fortunately, Mail allows us to set the size of a lot of things. We can change the size of the Mailbox font. We can change the size of the Message List font. We can change the size of the Message Text (sometimes). Here’s how we do it.

1. Get Mail running.
2. Go to the Mail menu and choose Peferences...
3. Click on the Fonts & Colors button at the top.

From here, it’s pretty much click-and-experiment time. You will get the most mileage out of the first three sections (Mailbox font, Message List font, and Message font). Here’s what my Mail program looked like before I started changing things...

Here are the settings that went along with it.

I changed the settings (by clicking the various “Select...” buttons) as shown below...

...and now my Mail program looks like this:

A couple of notes: first, you’ll notice that clicking the “Select...” buttons leads you to a panel with font sizes like 12, 14, and 18. If 14 is too small, and 18 is too big, you’re stuck... or are you? No, you’re not. Type in any size you want up at the top right, as I did to get 16 point for my Message List font.

Second, no matter which size you specify for the Message font, plenty of messages will stubbornly resist the change. Try all you want and the messages stay as they were. (Messages that are pure text will enlarge as directed, but most will not.) Solving that problem takes another couple of steps, but they’re worth it.

1. Choose “Customize Toolbar...” from Mail’s View menu.
2. Find the “Smaller Bigger” buttons and drag them to the toolbar.

3. Close up the Customize Toolbar window and give your new buttons a try.

If you tend to double-click messages so they open in their own windows, you’ll have to drag the buttons to a message window too. Just get a message open, go to View/Customize Toolbar, and drag the buttons up.

Here’s what a message looks like in the regular size:

Here’s what it looks like after a couple of clicks of the “Bigger” button (top right of the message window, right where I dragged it):

Try these adjustments for yourself. They make a world of difference. As always, if you’re stuck, send me a note and I’ll help you out.

Bigger is Better: Safari

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-03-24T23:49:24-07:00

(First in a series.)

A couple of weeks ago Mom was asking me how to make things bigger on her Mac. Naturally I had her select Displays from the System Preferences (under the Apple), and in there I had her choose any size that WASN’T the one with the largest numbers. Just as naturally, Mom didn’t like the way things looked, as there’s only one “sharp” resolution on an LCD screen, and that’s the one with the largest numbers. Yes, things were bigger, but no, they weren’t better. Try again, she said.

(Isn’t it funny how a person who wants things larger because the small type is too hard to see has no problem at all discerning the slight fuzziness present at larger sizes? Remarkable.)

If blowing up the entire screen (and losing quality in the process) wasn’t going good enough I was going to have to do it the hard way. Which is to say, go program by program and set the preferences in each to make things bigger. Today we’ll learn about doing that in Safari. We’ll cover Mail, the Finder, and a bunch of other programs later.

Safari 3 lets you make a website’s text larger (or smaller) in a couple of ways. First, you can go to the View menu and choose “Make Text Bigger” (or “Make Text Smaller”).

Another way to do it is to use the keyboard shortcuts next to the menu items for Make Text Bigger and Make Text Smaller: Command-Plus and Command-Minus. You don’t have to use the Shift key to do it-- just tap the + or the- while holding the Command key.

A third way is to click the “Big A” and “Small A” buttons on the toolbar. What, your toolbar doesn’t have those buttons? Solve that problem by going to Safari’s View menu and choosing Customize Toolbar...

Drag the two “Text Size” buttons up and onto the Toolbar, wherever they’re handy for you. When you’re done, click “Done,” and from then on all you have to do is click the big A to make the text bigger, and the small A to make the text smaller.

(Note to Safari 4 users: it works almost exactly the same way for you, except you’ll increase/decrease the size of the pictures as well as the text.)

Of the methods presented so far, I like Command-Plus and Command-Minus. But here’s another method that’s even better. At least sometimes.

Go to Safari’s Preferences (under the Safari menu) and click the Appearance button.

Jot down the information already in the box (Times 16 and Courier 13)-- you might want to change back to original settings one day-- then click each “Select...” button in turn and choose a larger size using the slider on the right. Don’t go crazy with it, and remember that you won’t see a change in every website (though you will on this one). Slide things around until it’s easy to read, and from then on your websites will load in the larger font. At least some of them will.

Cool stuff, eh?

iPhone Super Tips

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-03-11T00:56:03-07:00

Here are some of my favorite iPhone tips. Try ‘em and let me know what you think.

Press the Home button and you go to the “Home” screen you were most recently on. Press the Home button again and you go to the FIRST PAGE of the Home screens.
Capture whatever’s on your iPhone’s screen by holding the sleep button (top right) and quickly pressing the Home button. You’ll hear a camera shutter sound, not that “a camera shutter sound” will mean anything to anyone in a few years, and the picture will be stored in your Photos. From there, email it or do anything else you do with a screenshot. (Use a screenshot of the Home screen as your wallpaper. Hilarious!)
If web pages don’t rotate when you turn the iPhone sideways try putting the iPhone on edge. It works better that way. Flat on the table it has no idea that you’ve turned it. You can put it on edge to rotate, then lay it down flat when it’s finished the rotation.
Get an anti-glare film for the iPhone. The best ones come from Power Support USA and you can get them from the Apple Store online. They cut glare significantly, and as a bonus they are nicer for your finger to slide around on (and they don’t show fingerprints). Other than that, they don’t do anything. The films are cut very precisely and you just lay it down over the iPhone’s front glass. Works like a charm, without any adhesive! Don’t ask me how they do it. First person who asks me gets a free one, sized for the iPhone 3G.
Save a favorite web page to your Home screen. Start by loading up the web page in the iPhone’s Safari browser. Then touch the “+” at the bottom of the screen, then touch “Add to Home Screen.” From then on, you can go to that web page by touching it right on the Home screen. Very nice.

Tip of the Day: Address Book "Smart Groups"

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-02-22T17:53:08-08:00

If there’s one feature of Apple’s Address Book that is overlooked by almost everyone it’s Smart Groups. The regular kind of Group is handy, and you should read up on them (try going to the Help menu in Address Book and looking for “Groups”). In a nutshell, you add people to a Group manually, by dragging them from the “All” group. Easy enough. But not as easy (and not as cool) as Smart Groups.

A Smart Group fills itself automatically, exactly like a Smart Playlist in iTunes or a Smart Album in iPhoto. (Don’t know about those things? Send me a note and I’ll blog on it.)

Here’s an example. Suppose I wanted to be able to quickly find all of my contacts who either live or work in Texas. I could go through my entire list of contacts and drag them to a Group, but that wouldn’t be much fun (and when I added a new contact I’d have to remember to drag that person to the Texas Group). Much better is to make a Smart Group that does the work for me.

Step One is to make a new blank Smart Group. You can Option-click the “+” at the bottom left of the Address Book window, or you can go to File/New Smart Group...

Step Two is to choose a name for the Smart Group, and also to choose criteria. Many Smart Groups have just one criterion but in this case, I need to check two criteria because I don’t know how the State on a person’s address book card will be entered. Note that I chose “any” and not “all” for my matching criteria. In other cases, it would be better to match “all.”

Here’s what it looks like.

If you decide to modify your Smart Group down the road you don’t have to start over. Click once on the Smart Group that you want to modify (you could have several), then choose “Edit Smart Group...” from the Edit menu. Or just Control-click on the Smart Group and choose “Edit Smart Group...” from the pop-up menu.

The beautiful thing is that the Smart Group is always up to date. Add some people to the Address Book and the ones with Texas as their states will show up in the Texas Smart Group. This is really handy and you ought to give it a whirl.

iPhone app of the week: eReader

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-02-18T19:16:05-08:00

Surely you’ve heard of the Kindle, the electronic book-reading device from Amazon. It can hold thousands of books in its memory and you can download new ones through the air. That’s the good news.

Here’s the bad news: it costs $359, the screen isn’t color, and it’s another thing to carry around (and it’s not small).

Enter eReader, the iPhone app that turns your iPhone (or iPod Touch) into a Kindle-beating device for the low low price of ZERO. Yes, zero. Nice. You can download many books for free from www.manybooks.net. You do it right on the iPhone, from within the eReader program. (I’m reading “The Return of Sherlock Holmes” on my iPhone and didn’t pay a dime.)

By the way, eReader automatically saves your place when you go to do something else, like check your email or make a phone call. If you’re partway through several books eReader remembers your place in each. Really neat.

If that’s enough to sell you on it, click here and get eReader, for free, from the iTunes Store. If you’re not sold yet, here are some pictures that will help you see it my way.

Here’s the opening screen. Notice it’s in COLOR.

Here’s what eReader’s “Parchment” color scheme looks like. Very readable. That’s from The Return of Sherlock Holmes. (You swipe from right to left to turn the page-- no need to click a special button or anything.)

A tap on the screen brings up the options and controls. They go away with another tap.

Here are some of the settings.

eReader lets you focus on reading, not on the device you’re using and not on how much that device cost you. Apart from the opening screen there aren’t a lot of pictures so even though it’s in color that’s somewhat wasted since you can’t see illustrations. But, for the money, and the convenience, eReader’s a great addition to your iPhone. I really, really like it.

OmniFocus: To-do list for Mac and iPhone

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-02-08T18:15:22-08:00

There are many to-do list programs for the Mac. And there are many to-do list programs for the iPhone. But there aren’t many to-do list programs for the Mac that synchronize with the iPhone, an essential feature if you ask me.

Actually, there are two Mac to-do list programs that have synchronizing counterparts on the iPhone: Things, and OmniFocus. I use OmniFocus, and that’s what I’ll write about here.

OmniFocus follows David Allen’s Getting Things Done approach, where every project (no matter how large) is broken into bite-sized pieces (no matter how many). Getting Things Done, or GTD, also emphasizes the notion of “context,” or where something can get done. Some things, like phone calls, can be made just about anytime. Some things, like working on your blog, can only be done from a computer with internet access. Other things, like buying wood for a new planter box, can only be done while out running errands. The idea is that everything that needs to get done has to do with some larger project and has a context where it can be done.

You can get a lot done with the Getting Things Done approach, but if it takes you half a day to get organized, you only have half a day left. And, if you can only check your to-do list while in front of your computer, you’re going to forget stuff while you’re out and about. OmniFocus on the Mac, and on the iPhone, solves these problems neatly.

Click here to watch a brief introductory video on the Mac version of OmniFocus. Click here to download a trial version of OmniFocus for your Mac (sorry, there is no trial version for the iPhone).

Here’s what OmniFocus looks like on my Mac:

It’s not as complicated as it looks, and you can skip a bunch of features while you learn how to use the program. In the picture above you can see I’m looking at “Remaining” items but I could look at “All” items-- in that case there would be several with checked boxes (yes, I’ve actually FINISHED a few things).

Here’s a picture of OmniFocus on the iPhone. This is the Home screen:

Touch Projects and it expands to show all of your projects. Touch Contexts and it expands to show your contexts. The Due Soon section shows items that are due “soon” (you can define what “soon” means), and the Overdue section fills itself in with items whose due dates have passed. Flagged items are simply things that you want to be able to jump to in a hurry-- maybe they aren’t due anytime soon but you want to be able to refer to them quickly.

Here’s what the Projects screen looks like (on my iPhone):

OmniFocus for the iPhone is $19.95, fairly expensive for an iPhone app (and by far my most expensive iPhone purchase). OmniFocus for the Mac is $79.95, also on the pricey side. But man oh man do they ever work well together. Once you set it up they’ll sync through the air, even through the AT&T network, so you’ll always have an up to date list. You can do your main work on your Mac and without your doing anything, the updated list will appear on your iPhone. Make a change on the iPhone and back it goes to your Mac. It’s super groovy.

If that’s not enough, you can even sync between two Macs. So, if you work on a desktop Mac sometimes, and on a laptop Mac other times, you can be sure of having the latest to-do list on both, and you don’t have to do anything once you’ve set it up.

Recommendation: if you have multiple Macs, and an iPhone, and you have lots of stuff to get done, the combination of OmniFocus on the Mac and OmniFocus on the iPhone will make things a lot easier. It has for me. Just knowing that everything is written down in one place takes a huge load off my mind. I am betting that it will for you too.

iWork 09 report

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-02-07T16:25:55-08:00

Apple put out a new version of iWork at Macworld Expo and it’s really terrific. I’ve been working with it fairly intensely as I’m the Technical Reviewer for the iWork ’09 “Missing Manual” book.

iWork is a collection of three programs: Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. Pages is a much nicer word processor than Microsoft Word, both easier to use and more capable. It also opens Microsoft Word documents, so goodbye Word, hello Pages.

Numbers is Apple’s version of Microsoft Excel, and like Pages, it’s a lot nicer to use than the competition. Keynote is Apple’s presentation program (the same one Steve Jobs used for all those “keynote” speeches) and it too is a pleasure to use, especially compared to Microsoft’s PowerPoint.

For $79 you get all three programs. For $99 you get the 5-user “Family Pack.” For free you get the 30 day trial. Click here to get the trial. You can watch movies about how to use iWork as the programs download. And you can click here to see a whole slew of tutorials.

I think you’re going to love it. Get the trial and find out for yourself.

iLife 09 report

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-01-28T20:22:32-08:00

I mean to try every part of iLife 09: iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb, and Garage Band. Hard to do it all in one sitting so we’ll take it a piece of a time. Tonight’s installment: iPhoto 09.

iPhoto 09 retains the familiar look of iPhoto 08 (and others) so if you’d used iPhoto before this new version won’t be hard to navigate. You’ll notice two new features right off the bat: Faces, and Places. Faces helps you organize your photos based on who is in them. Places helps you organize your photos based on where you took them.

Try this link for a video intro to iPhoto 09, courtesy of Apple. It covers everything you need to know. Click here for a list of video tutorials for iPhoto 09, also courtesy of Apple.

The installation of iLife 09 and the conversion of my existing iPhoto 08 database took over an hour. Not bad. I made sure I had a backup of my iPhoto database before I did the installation, of course. So should you.

Apple's still in business

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-01-22T17:30:30-08:00

By now everyone’s written about Steve Jobs taking a little break for health reasons. Two themes have been repeated:

Is Steve OK?
Is there life for Apple after Steve Jobs?

The answer to number 1 is “we don’t know.” Rumors have him considering a liver transplant. No truth to the rumor that Apple is developing the “iLiver” in several colors.

The answer to number 2 is “yes, at least for now.” Apple is going great guns, selling more stuff than ever. Their earnings report for the first quarter of the fiscal year (which is the last quarter of the calendar year) impressed the socks off of the “analysts.” By the way, in case any of you are looking for the easy job of all time, be an “analyst.” I think I might try it myself.

Macworld Expo Report 2.0

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-01-11T19:14:18-08:00

Macworld Expo’s over-- hopefully, just for this year, but possibly forever. Rumors are swirling that Apple will go to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next year (which means that I might get to finally attend that show, since it’s always conflicted with Macworld). In fact, some sources say that Apple’s already paid for their booth. We’ll see about that.

Highlights of the show (at least for me):

A new iLife package from Apple, with an iPhoto that recognizes faces. You have to see it to believe it.
A new iWork package from Apple, improving an already very-nice-to-use alternative to Microsoft Office.
A nifty to-do list manager called “Things,” with an accompanying iPhone application.
Free samples of a new “smart drink” called BrainToniq, which I believe is still working for me.
Free coffee in Acura’s “coffee lounge,” decorated with their latest line of cars.

Memo to future Macworld Expo exhibitors: free drinks are good.

Macworld Expo Keynote

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-01-06T17:35:58-08:00

Well, it’s come and gone-- the 2009 Macworld Expo keynote speech. You can watch all 90 minutes of it, including a couple of songs by Tony Bennett-- here’s the link. I have to say that Phil Schiller did an admirable job, considering what he was up against.

Here’s the keynote in a nutshell:

There’s a new version of iLife coming out this month, which means updated iPhoto, Garage Band, iWeb, and iMovie.

The highlight of iLife: face-recognition in iPhoto. It can find a face in a photo and if you tell it who that face belongs to, iPhoto will search its database of photos and make an album of other pictures with that face in it. Neat. I can’t wait to try it. But I’ll have to wait until the end of January, same as everyone else. The new iMovie is pretty neat too (watch the first 40 minutes of the keynote speech and you’ll see iPhoto and iMovie demonstrated).

iWork is also getting an upgrade. I already liked iWork but I’m looking forward to seeing the new version.

The 17-inch MacBook Pro has been updated. Now it looks like the other MacBook Pro models (aluminum case, big-clicker trackpad). Its battery is supposed to give you 8 hours of use but you can’t take it out yourself. It’s all sealed up, like an iPhone’s.

I’ll be at Macworld Thursday to see it all in person, and if it’s super-groovy I will let you know all about it.

Meanwhile, here’s a link to the new iPhoto goodies, and another link to the new iMovie stuff.

Macworld Expo Report 1.0

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-01-03T23:19:51-08:00

Coming Soon (January 10th, 2009 at 10 AM): it’s the Christian Boyce Macworld Expo Report, live from San Francisco. I’ll tell you all about the groovy stuff I saw at Macworld and I’ll tell you what I found out about Steve Jobs and I’ll tell you whether there will be a Macworld Expo next year or not.

KPFK, 90.7 FM in Los Angeles at 10 AM January 10th, or streaming on the web via this link.

Website of the Day

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-01-03T22:58:39-08:00

If you have a Mac, you have a copy of Apple’s iCal calendar. It’s a nice little calendar, and it syncs with the iPhone, and there’s almost no reason not to use it. Especially when someone else types in the information! That’s where MarkThisDate comes in. MarkThisDate has zillions of calendars that are yours for the clicking-- they jump right into your iCal and you can easily turn them off by unchecking a checkbox, or delete them all at once with just a couple of clicks.

By the way, the calendars are free.

Here are a couple of handy calendars to get you started.

NFL Playoff Schedule (updated as the playoffs progress)
California Golden Bears Football Schedule (updated as games are added and changed)
Moon Phases

Note: when you click those links you’ll be taken to iCal, where a box will appear asking you some questions about this new calendar that you are about to add. The key: tell the calendar to REFRESH every day (or at some other interval). You want it to refresh because you want updated information. For example, the NFL Playoff calendar as of this writing shows that San Diego beat Indianapolis in overtime, and that Arizona beat Atlanta. Very nice.

iPhone idea of the Week

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-01-03T22:46:29-08:00

So brilliantly simple, today’s idea is this: use your iPhone to take a picture of where your car is parked. When you return, have a look at the picture, and that’s that. It’s a huge help in those huge parking structures-- just get a photo showing “B45” or whatever the sign is next to your car, and when you come back for your car you’ll have a visual reminder.

Happy New Year.

Make mine Mint (dot com)

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-12-29T14:09:05-08:00

Wow, what a cool website: www.mint.com.

They call it “the best way to manage your money.” And it’s free.

Anyone can sign up for a mint.com account. You then enter information about your financial accounts-- savings, checking, investments, credit cards. Do that, and at a glance you can see ALL of your financial information in one place.

Better than that: you can see every transaction for every account, right there on the site. You can find every transaction that had to do with dining out, or gasoline, or presents for your uncle. Very handy. Download them if you want.

Better than THAT: you can get reminders emailed or text messaged to remind you to pay your credit card bill, or to alert you that a large purchase was made, or to tell you that a deposit is now available. How handy.

Better than THAT: you can download a copy of Mint for your iPhone and carry all this information around with you. It’s free. Here’s the link.

cboyce says “Check it out.”

10.5.6 update-- do it (my way)

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-12-21T10:25:03-08:00

Apple’s released the 10.5.6 update, so naturally I am getting zillions of calls about whether it’s safe to install or not. It is. Just be careful, as usual.

Do it like this:

Restart your computer.
Find the Disk Utility (in the Utilities folder, in the Applications folder, on your hard disk) and “repair permissions.” If you don’t know how to do this have me do it with you over the phone one time.
Download and install the 10.5.6 update (Apple menu, Software Update...)

The updater will want you to restart when it’s done. Do that, then run Disk Utility again, and repair permissions again. That’s it.

(The updater is full of bug fixes, including some for Mail and iChat. You won’t notice much new but your machine will run better after the 10.5.6 update.)

iFixit.com

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-12-21T09:55:59-08:00

What a cool website, and gee don’t I wish I’d found it before I took apart that iBook and couldn’t put it back together again. Click the picture and have a look.

How-to manuals. Parts. Friendly tips. cboyce says “Check it out.”

(Here’s the manual I should have read before taking apart the iBook):

Macworld Expo news

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-12-17T21:43:01-08:00

Macworld Expo is still three weeks away and already there is plenty of news, and all of it’s bad. First, as you’ve surely heard by now, Apple CEO Steve Jobs will NOT be giving the keynote speech this time. That’s bad. Jobs’ keynotes have been a big part of Macworld Expo, often the best part.

Second, Phil Schiller, Apple’s head of worldwide marketing, WILL be giving the keynote speech. That’s also bad. Schiller’s robotic spin-meister marketspeak is a sad contrast to Jobs’ genuine enthusiasm for Apple’s hardware and software and people. I hadn’t thought about Jobs’ predecessor Gil Amelio’s last keynote speech for awhile (it was horrible-- boring, and long, and delivered in a sleep-inducing way) and I hadn’t ever thought that anything could be worse... but I am thinking that maybe it might be this time. Phil, if you’re listening, here’s some friendly advice: when you give the talk, lay off the marketing hype. Just play it straight. The products are good enough.

Third, Apple has already announced that they aren’t going to be part of Macworld 2010. I do not expect the show to survive beyond 2010. I completely understand what Apple is saying about how the whole notion of the trade show isn’t important in the Internet Age, and how they can now release information and introduce products on their own schedule instead of trying to come through every January with new and exciting stuff-- but understanding the reasons doesn’t mean I like the result. Macworld Expo gave people like me-- and people not at all like me-- the chance to meet face to face. And that was a good thing.

AppShopper website

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-12-07T10:35:48-08:00

Here’s a handy website for you iPhone users. It’s called “AppShopper.” With more than 10,000 iPhone applications available it’s getting harder and harder to find just the one you want via the iTunes Store. AppShopper makes it easy. Here’s a screen shot.

Free AT&T WiFi for iPhones

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-10-30T21:21:04-07:00

Maybe they got tired of hearing us complain about how slow the AT&T Edge network is and how 3G isn’t so much better. Regardless, AT&T is now providing free WiFi connections (many times faster than the Edge and 3G networks) in “thousands of hotspots nationwide” including airports, McDonald’s, and Starbucks. Click here for a map of AT&T’s hotspots. Click here for AT&T’s instructions on how to make the connection.

Stuff You Ought to Know

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-10-26T23:33:20-07:00

Newer Macs come with little pictures on the function keys (top row of keys, with names like “F1”) and they are supposed to tell you what the keys do. The pictures aren’t all that clear, and on older keyboards the pictures aren’t there at all. Here are some explanations.

Newer keyboards:
F1: make the screen dimmer
F2: make the screen brighter
F3: show all windows (Exposé)
F4: show Dashboard widgets
F5: nothing
F6: nothing
F7: go back (in iTunes)
F8: play/pause (in iTunes)
F9: skip forward (in iTunes)
F10: mute/unmute all sounds
F11: make the sounds softer
F12: make the sounds louder
F13: nothing
F14: nothing
F15: nothing
F16: nothing

Older keyboards:
F1: nothing
F2: nothing
F3: nothing
F4: nothing
F5: nothing
F6: nothing
F7: nothing
F8: nothing
F9: show all windows (Exposé)
F10: show all windows for current application (Exposé)
F11: show the Desktop
F12: show Dashboard widgets
F13: nothing
F14: make the screen dimmer
F15: make the screen brighter

If the keys don’t do these things for you it’s probably because someone’s made some changes in your Keyboard preferences. Go to the Apple menu, then to System Preferences, then to Keyboard & Mouse, then to Keyboard Shortcuts. You’ll figure it out from there. Of course, if you don’t, you can always click here to send me an email.

iPhone Goodies

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-10-21T13:32:39-07:00

Sorry to have been gone so long. I had a million things to write about and couldn’t decide which one to do first. You might call it a “blogjam.”

Today we have more in my short-yet-continuing series of Things I Like. Specifically, we have some iPhone applications. So here we go.

1. i.TV

It’s a TV guide on your iPhone. Incredible. Knows which services are in your area. Bring it with you when you visit Mom so you can know what’s on TV at her house. Free free free.

2. Gas Hound

Shows you where the nearest cheapest gas is. Once again, it knows where you are... so it shows you gas prices at Stations Near You. Very handy, and free free free.

3. Plusmo College Football

Everything you want to know about college football, including schedules, up to the minute scores, realtime play-by-play, rankings, news, everything. If you like college football you will love this application. Free.

4. 100 Words to Make You Sound Smart

I don’t know if this thing will really help you sound smart but it’s worth a try. As far as I’m concerned, if you are fastidious about avoiding euphemisms and equivocating, sounding smart is a fait accompli. Pay attention to the definitions lest you commit an esoteric faux pas fiasco.

(I think it’s working!)

This one’s also free.

10.5.5 update

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-09-16T19:01:38-07:00

Hard to recommend the 10.5.5 update just yet. There seem to be some installation issues. Half of the machines at Boyceworld took the installation without incident and are working fine. The other half took forever to restart after the install, then went to a blue screen, then turned themselves off. After restarting a few times all seems normal but everything leading up to that certainly wasn’t pleasant. I think you can live without it, but if you are daring and want to install 10.5.5 at the very least be sure you are completely backed up, AND repair permissions before you install, AND be sure nothing is running when you do the install (hint: restart first, then do the Software Update), AND be sure that all external disks are disconnected.

Personally, given all that, if you still want to do 10.5.5, I think you should have me do it.

iPhone 2.1 Software

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-09-14T23:46:45-07:00

Thumbs UP to the iPhone 2.1 software. It’s working perfectly here.

According to the documentation, the 2.1 update provides:

1. Faster backing up of the iPhone
2. Faster synching
3. Faster Contacts browsing
4. No more crashes

Other than that, it doesn’t do anything.

If you are on any other version of iPhone software starting with a 2, get this update. You won’t be sorry. If you are on a 1.0 version of the iPhone software, contact me and I’ll explain why you might want to upgrade.

Stuff You Didn't Know You Had

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-09-08T23:56:31-07:00

And now, something completely different!

Apple loads new Macs with a lot of software that we all use (iPhoto, Safari, Mail, iTunes, etc.). They also load new Macs with a lot of software that almost no one uses. But if more of us knew about it, more of us would use it. I think. My goal is to put that software to use, one Boyce Blog reader at a time.

Today’s program that You Didn’t Know You Had is “Grapher.” It’s probably in your Utilities folder (which is in your Applications folder). The icon looks like this (though not as big).

Double-click it, and you get this:

Click the “Open” button and you get this:

Type in an equation (it starts with “y=”), hit Return, and voila! Your equation is graphed. Here’s one, a 2-D example:

Here’s another, this time a 3-D example.

Yes, that’s z=(1/6) * x*x + (1/6) * y * y. Very good.
If you happen to be taking high school math-- you know who you are-- this will be incredibly useful.

Tip of the Day, September 3rd, 2008

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-09-02T23:45:33-07:00

Today’s topic: The Desktop.

We love The Desktop. We put all of our stuff there. And then we open up Safari, or Mail, or something else, and we cover everything up. When we need something from The Desktop, Step One (and Step Two, and Step 3) is “move all those windows out of the way so you can see The Desktop.” Very inefficient. No one likes it.

Today we are going to learn how to use “Exposé.” Exposé allows us to get to The Desktop with a single keystroke. It will save you a ton of time.

Exposé can be configured using the System Preferences (under the Apple menu). Click on the “Exposé and Spaces” button in 10.5 (“Dashboard & Exposé” in 10.4), then the Exposé button, and you’ll get something like this:

See where it says “Show Desktop”? You can click there and choose the keyboard shortcut that you want to use to trigger the showing of The Desktop. On my Mac, it’s Shift-F3 (the arrow means “Shift”). When I press that combination of keys, everything scoots off the screen-- temporarily, revealing my Desktop. I can double-click an icon from there or do anything else I want. Another press of Shift-F3 will bring the windows back. Pretty handy.

All you have to do is pick the key(s) you want to use as the trigger. It could be plain old F9. Or Shift-F10. Or just about anything you want. Hint: try holding down a modifier key (Command, Option, Shift, or Control) when you have that “Show Desktop” menu clicked. The menu will change to reflect what you’re holding down.

Once you’ve chosen a key to show The Desktop, close up the preferences and try the key out. Fun, yes?

Bonus Hint: Click and HOLD your “Show Desktop” key. The Desktop appears. Let go of the key and the windows come back. This saves you one keystroke if all you want to do is LOOK at your desktop. Think one little keystroke isn’t worth saving? One day, when your wrists are burning and your hands are falling off from overuse you’ll say “Dang it, he was right.” Save yourself some pain and say it now, before you get Carpal Tunnel Syndrome like everyone else.

I love football, part 2

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-08-30T10:04:10-07:00

The football season is finally here! And with that comes the complex time-management task of watching all the important games with a limited number of TVs in the house. My method: keep tabs on the games via the internet, and if a game starts to look interesting, switch over to it on the TV. I use this page on ESPN’s website because it lets you see the scores of all the games, real-time.

I particular like the “GameCast” feature, which gives you a graphic of the field so you can see where the ball is, and a description of the last play. Here’s how it looks:

You can open up a couple of “GameCast” windows and keep an eye on all of them at once. If you have a TV in the same room as your Mac you’re all set-- put one game on the TV, and watch the rest on the internet. When GameCast shows you that someone’s about to score, or that the game’s almost over but still very close, you’ll know about it in time to switch the TV to that game. Sort of the poor man’s “picture in a picture.”

This works for the Pro’s too, of course.

iPhone, uPhone, we all scream at our iPhones

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-08-27T23:39:54-07:00

Especially if we’ve installed the 2.0 software, which you can’t avoid if you bought a 3G iPhone. Basically, the software’s not ready, but we’re using it. And that leads to very bad behavior. I spent most of the weekend with my iPhone connected to my iMac, trying to get it iworking again. And still it’s not right. Let that be a lesson to you.

Meanwhile, I can’t wait for the new iPhone 2.1 software, which supposedly solves all kinds of problems. I’d be happy if it just solves one: the one where one program crashes and from that point forward, NONE of your apps work.

By the way, the backups that the iPhone does during synching aren’t very useful. Don’t think that they will save the day for you. Odds are that they are corrupt in some way. Mine were. So, when I wiped out my iPhone and “started over” I was putting bad stuff back onto the iPhone. Nice.

Drop in on an Apple Store at the end of the day when the Geniuses are tired of trying to solve iPhone problems and you may get one of them to tell you something like “look, it doesn’t work right, we know it, and we want to see the new 2.1 software more than you do.” That’s what they told me tonight. I believe them.

Tip of the Day, August 25th 2008

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-08-25T13:19:07-07:00

Here’s one for all the Apple Mail users.

Ever send someone an email with an attachment? Of course you have. Most people write the message, then click the Attach button, then climb around in what some of you call “the dead-end box” (where you’re supposed to somehow track down the thing you want to attach).

Here are two methods that are a lot easier. You start in the Finder, not in Mail. In this example, I have a document I want to email, and I’ve clicked on it ONCE to select it. Here’s a picture, and you can see what I’ve selected.

Now we have two choices. One choice is to click and DRAG the document to the Mail icon in the Dock. When the Mail icon highlights, let go. Presto-- you’ll get a new document, with the attachment attached.

The other choice requires less dragging. Leave the soon-to-be attachment where it is (still highlighted) and go to the Finder menu (next to the Apple menu), slide down to “Services,” choose “Mail” and then “Send File.” It’s really just one move-- takes less effort for you to do it than for me to tell you how.

Believe it or not, I only “discovered” this second method TODAY. That Services menu has been around a few years, but it hasn’t been very useful... at least that’s what I thought. Now I think I am going to take a good look at Services and see whether I can “discover” something else cool.

The key to these methods is you start with the attachment, not with Mail. Try it once or twice and you’ll be a convert.

Tip of the Day, August 24th, 2008

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-08-24T23:43:00-07:00

Did You Know-- ?

The Preview program that comes with OS X 10.5 can do some pretty spiffy things. In fact, it can do some of the things Photoshop can do, and some of the stuff that Acrobat can do, and a whole bunch of stuff that neither can do. And it’s free.

In Part I of this tip (today’s blog entry) I’ll outline some of the really handy features built into Preview. Part II will explain how to use these features. Email me and tell me which features you want explained first-- this is your chance to influence the blog.
You can use Preview to...

combine two or more PDF documents.
delete one or morepages from a PDF document.
rotate one or all pages in a PDF document.
crop one or more pages in a PDF document.
mark up or otherwise highlight a PDF document.
adjust color/brightness/shadows/etc. in a JPG document.
adjust size and resolution in a JPG document.
save documents as PDF, JPG, GIF, TIFF, PNG... and Photoshop format.

Pretty neat. Try some of these things on your own. If you can’t figure out how to make them work, do what researchers at the Christian Boyce Center for Advanced Macintosh Studies do-- namely, “guess.” In Preview, your guess is likely to be right.

That’s it for now. Vote for the features you want explained. We’ll follow up within a few days.

Tip of the Day, August 21st 2008

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-08-21T09:44:04-07:00

Ever get a weird error message on your Mac and then try to tell someone (me) about it? The conversation goes like this:

You: “I got a weird error message on my Mac.”
Me: “Oh really. What did it say?”
You: “Something about an error.”
Me: “Right. Can you tell me a little more?”
You: “No, it just said there was an error. What do you suppose it was?”
Me: “Aaargh.”

Today we are going to learn how to take pictures of the screen-- of the whole screen, of parts of the screen, of particular windows. Here goes.

Take a picture of the ENTIRE screen by holding down Command and Shift and 3. If the sound is up on your Mac you’ll hear a camera shutter sound, useful to those of you who have heard a camera with a shutter. The picture will be saved on your desktop with a name like “Picture 1.” From there, do anything you want with it-- open it, print it, email it.
Take a picture of PART of the screen by holding down Command and Shift and 4. You’ll get a cross-hair cursor. Click and drag to highlight part of the screen, then let go. You’ll hear the shutter sound again, and there’ll be an icon with “Picture 1” (or 2, or 10) on the desktop, ready for you to work with.

Bonus: do Command-Shift-4, then press the spacebar. Your cursor will look like a camera! Move it until it is over the window you want to take a picture of, then click the mouse. Presto: a PERFECT picture of that window, edge-to-edge. No trimming required.

Double Bonus: do any of the above but also include the CONTROL key. When you do that, the picture is put onto the Clipboard, ready to be pasted into an email (or anywhere else). It does not save a copy on the desktop.

So... next time you get a weird error message on your screen, do this: Command-Shift-CONTROL-4, then spacebar, then get your cursor over the error message, then click. Write me an email, and paste the picture in.

It sounds complicated but after you’ve done it once or twice it becomes almost automatic. Sort of like breathing.

Tip of the Day, August 20th 2008

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-08-20T23:28:00-07:00

Summary only available when permalinks are enabled.

Uncle Steve says "We'll fix it"

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-08-20T10:38:21-07:00

I hear that Steve Jobs sent “someone” an email saying he knows about the iPhone problem reported here-- the one where all applications (except the default Apple ones) open for two seconds and then slam shut. He says the problem will be fixed in September, via a Software Update. Yahoo!

New iPhone Software! Yahoo!

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-08-19T11:19:00-07:00

Apple put out iPhone software 2.0.2 last evening. I of course installed it, and I of course am still having problems. If you were hoping (as I was) that everything would be fixed the next time Apple put out new iPhone software, you will be disappointed.

Apple doesn’t say much about this release. All they will tell us is “bug fixes.” That’s nice. They didn’t fix the bugs I care the most about, though. On the other hand, it’s free.

And it’s easy to get. Connect your iPhone to your Mac with the USB cable and when iTunes comes up you can check for updates right there. It took a few hours here-- more than an hour to back up my iPhone, then some more time to put the new software on, then a lot more time after that to put my old stuff back on. And it got stuck restarting-- that went most of the night, until the battery died. So then I had to do the “restore” which took another couple of hours.

Not sure what I got for my 18 hour effort but at least things are no worse than they were before. I think.

If you have an older iPhone I wouldn’t do the update. If you have a newer one I would, because (despite Apple’s secrecy) I think the improvements have to do with the 3G reception, which doesn’t do anything for the older, non-3G models. Just be sure you have plenty of time.

Living in a Modern World

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-08-13T19:37:05-07:00

In the olden days, you watched the Olympics on TV and you only got to see what they wanted you to see, when they wanted you to see it. If you were away from the TV you didn’t get to see it. Life was hard.

But NOW, you can watch the Olympics on your computer, and see what YOU want to see, when YOU want to see it. Provided that the event isn’t in the future. All you have to do is click this link. You’ll need the “Silverlight” plug-in from Microsoft, and if you don’t have it, you’ll get the chance to download it for free. Remember to install it after you download it.

I’m watching Poland vs. Germany in women’s team Table Tennis right now (LIVE). Smooth video, and NO ANNOUNCERS! It’s like being there (I think). You can also watch archived stuff, such as the men’s swimming relay race that was so sensational a couple of nights back. So give it a whirl and take advantage of this modern world we live in.

My iPhone Adventure

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-08-08T21:22:02-07:00

When YOU have Apple troubles, you call me. When I have Apple troubles, I call... actually, I call me too. At the moment, I am trying to figure out what makes the iPhone crash, and more importantly, how to make it work again. The kinds of crashes I’m talking about are the ones where an application opens part way, then dumps you back at the Home screen, and then NO applications work except for the original ones from Apple.

Here’s what DOESN’T make it work again:

Turning it off and on again via the top button (holding down until you see “Slide to turn off,” then sliding, then turning it on again). Problem is still there.
Force-restarting (holding the Home button, then pressing the top button until the iPhone restarts by itself). Problem is still there.
Deleting the last program you installed. Problem is still there.
Installing the 2.0.1 iPhone update doesn’t do it either.

Here’s what DOES make it work again:

Restoring via the “Restore” button in iTunes. It works, but it takes HOURS. First it backs up your iPhone, then it re-downloads and reinstalls the latest iPhone software, then it asks you whether you want to put all your stuff back on (and you’d think you’d be putting the problem back on too, but go ahead and do it), and then, when you say yes, you wait another hour or so while it finishes. Not the sort of thing you do between planes in the Phoenix airport. Though I’ve tried.

Research continues on this. It appears that the problem is in the iPhone’s software, not in the applications we add, because with a fresh install of the iPhone’s software the applications work fine. For a while. The question is, what’s causing the corruption?The next question is, how can we recover from corrupt iPhone software in a few minutes instead of a few hours?

Stuff I Like

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-08-06T15:17:18-07:00

Here’s something that I really like: anti-glare film from Power Support. The film is exactly the right size for whatever it is you want to cover-- in my case, my iPhone and my MacBook. The glare on my MacBook screen, especially, was a constant irritation-- but not any more! Wow, does this stuff work.

Took me two tries to get the bubbles out on the iPhone’s film but I did the MacBook right the first time. It even feels good to the tapping/sliding finger on the iPhone. I think it’s a little more slippery than the original glass. A bonus.

I wish they had it for the new iMacs but so far, they don’t. Bummer. But that doesn’t make the stuff that they DO have any less good.

You can get Power Support film via Amazon.com. Here’s the link.

iPhone software 2.0.1, part 2

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-08-06T08:57:02-07:00

The good news: iPhone software 2.0.1 didn’t make anything worse. The bad news: applications still crash the iPhone, and once you’ve crashed with one application you can’t open any of the others- just like before. Turning off the iPhone and turning it back on doesn’t solve the problem- also just like before. I’m working here to figure out what WILL solve the problem. It would appear easier to figure out how to run a car on coffee grounds.

So, go ahead and do the 2.0.1 update, but don’t expect miracles. If I get an answer for the crashing, or for how to run a car on coffee grounds, I will let you know.

iPhone software 2.0.1

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-08-04T22:03:44-07:00

It’s here! They say it fixes some bugs. We’ll see.

Do yourself a favor and wait until I’ve tried it and given it a thumbs-up. Look for info here withing 24 hours.

eBay on the iPhone

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-08-03T13:45:35-07:00

If you’re an eBayer, having eBay on your iPhone is about the handiest thing ever. Here’s what it looks like on the iPhone.

Click this link and get it.

Tip of the Day, August 3rd, 2008

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-08-03T11:48:33-07:00

Command-Spacebar. That’s it. See you tomorrow.

OK, here’s a little more info. When you press Command-Spacebar, you get a little search box at the top right of your screen. Looks like this:

Type something in, and as you type, Spotlight searches your hard disk(s) for matches. Big deal? Well, yeah, because it searches INSIDE documents in addition to searching document titles. So, if you’re wondering what you gave your nephew for Christmas last year, you can search for his name and find it in a document called “Naughty and Nice 2007.” Good luck finding that document some other way.

Of course you could do this by clicking the Spotlight magnifying glass at the top right of your screen, but Command-Spacebar is faster. By far.

Bonus cool thing: do a Spotlight search, then use arrow keys to run down (or back up) to the matching item you want, and then hit Enter. The item pops right up, whether it’s a Word document, an email, or a calendar item. Now that’s handy.

Try it.

Big Wednesday

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-08-01T20:59:36-07:00

Wednesday July 30th, 2008 was www.christianboyce.com’s biggest day ever in terms of “site visits.” We had 50, which means that someone came to the site 50 times. Now, that could be ME going to the site, closing my browser, coming back a little later, etc., 50 times... but it wasn’t. I like to think it was Steve Jobs, Mom, my nephew, and 47 of YOU. So “thanks.”

The Boyce Blog page was the most-requested page on the site, even more than the home page. Which means that people are coming straight to the Blog without going through the home page. Interesting.

Today (actually, Wednesday) 50, tomorrow 100. Tell a friend. Let’s do it.

iPhone Improvement of the Day

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-08-01T20:51:38-07:00

The iPhone lets you program the Home button so that a double-click takes you either to the Home screen, to your favorite phone numbers, or to the iPod application. The first choice is simply what a single click does, so that’s not really “a choice” at all. The other two are OK, but wouldn’t it be better if the choices included...

go to SETTINGS (which means I could set the brightness in a hurry)
go to the program you were using before this one
go to the FIRST page of the Home screen

That last choice needs some explanation. “Going to the Home screen” is a bad way to put things, because for almost all of us, the Home screen is really several screens. As it stands, when you press “Home” you go back to the page of the Home screen(s) that you were most recently on. I guess that’s good, but it’s not nearly as good as my idea(s).

Keep your fingers crossed for the iPhone 2.1 software. If it includes ANY of the things I’ve written about here it will be a big improvement.

I Thought I Was Going Nuts

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-08-01T20:36:14-07:00

All this week I’ve been showing people my iPhone and how to do cool stuff with the applications that I’ve downloaded. And all this week I’ve had trouble finding the applications. None of them seemed to be where I thought they were. I wasn’t sure, but it seemed to me that they moved overnight. (And that’s a real drag, consdering how hard it is to arrange the apps in an order that I like.)

The first time this happened, I thought “I need more sleep, I’m forgetting where I put things.” The next time it happened (Tuesday) I thought the same thing. Eventually, I started to consider another possiblity: my nightly synching of iPhone and iMac was messing things up.

Show of Hands: if your iPhone applications are moving around, is the correct answer....

They aren’t moving around, you’re just losing your mind
They are moving around, and Apple’s doing it behind your back

How many picked “a”? Frankly, that was my guess too. But last night, I saw my iPhone applications move around with my own eyes. And now I know how it happens.

Let’s say you have an iPhone program on the first screen, and let’s say you have five other screens. You would rightly expect to find those “first screen” programs on the first screen forever, or at least until you moved them yourself. But that’s not how it works! When you get updates for a program on the first screen, and you do it by tapping the “App Store” button (on the iPhone) and then the “Updates” button, the programs that you update go to the last page of you iPhone. The last page! It’s insane. And an outrage.

Given that (a) we can’t sort programs by name or date (or by anything else), and that (b) moving them around is a giant pain, you would think (c) that Apple wouldn’t be moving our apps (and not telling us about it either). But move them around they are-- just another in a growing list of “features” in the iPhone that are very, very non-Apple.

Tip of the Day, July 30th, 2008

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-07-30T19:42:39-07:00

See that row of keys across the top of your keyboard? The row you never use? How about making those keys do something useful, like opening your mail program, or Safari, or (yuck) Microsoft Word? Here’s how you do it using a FREE program called “Spark.”

Step One: go to versiontracker.com and download Spark. Here’s the link.
Step Two: double-click the download from Step One, and if things go right you’ll see something called Spark on your desktop. It will look like this:

Open that, revealing this. That’s the Spark application. Drag it to your Applications folder.
Step Three: open up the Applications folder and open up Spark. You’ll see something like this (without the shortcuts yet):

Step Four: click the little gear at top left, hold it down, and slide down to “Application.” Now you get another box:

All you need to do is fill in the box. Click where it says “click to edit” and then press the “trigger” key. Click where it says “Choose...” and choose a program to open. “Calculator” is a nice one-- why not make Calculator be F5? Try it-- there’s really nothing like getting your hands a little dirty.

From that point on, your key will work-- forever, for free. Pretty neat.

If you have trouble, click the link at the bottom of the page and send me an email.

Tip of the Day, July 29th, 2008

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-07-29T21:41:18-07:00

Supposing you wanted to put your Mac to sleep. Or to shut it down. Or maybe restart it. Do it the way the cool kids do: press the Eject button (top row of keys, a triangle with a line under it) while also holding pressing Control (either one of the Control keys). You get a box asking “Are you sure you want to shut down your computer now?”

If that’s what you want, hit Enter on your keyboard, and voila, the computer shuts down. If you want to put it to sleep, you can click the Sleep button... or just type “s.” Want to restart instead? Type “r.”

If you change your mind about shutting down/sleeping/restarting you can click the Cancel button... or, better yet, press the “Esc” key. Pretty darned neat. Once you get the hang of it, you can do Control-Eject and then Enter lickety split, faster than anyone can choose “Shut Down” with the mouse.

I “discovered” this tip accidentally. I was trying to eject a CD, and when I pressed Eject I got the “Are you sure you want to shut down your computer now?” box. I was surprised to see that box, so I cancelled and tried again-- with the same result! I kept pressing Eject and I kept getting the box asking me whether I really wanted to shut down. I was mystified. Mystified, that is, until I realized that Charlie the Cat, who I thought was sitting beside the keyboard, was really sitting on it-- more precisely, on the Control key, way off at the bottom left corner of the keyboard. When Charlie moved, the Eject key did what it used to do (Eject things). And that’s when I figured it out.

Anyhow, Charlie the Cat gets credit for this one. She’s not much of a typist so this is really a team effort.

Groovy new search engine

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-07-28T08:50:15-07:00

There’s a new search engine-- www.cuil.com. It’s really cool. In fact, that’s how you pronounce it. Give it a whirl.

And Another Thing

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-07-27T15:00:04-07:00

Speaking of making big improvements to the iPhone via some VERY simple changes: wouldn’t it be cool if you could scroll past the last page of your iPhone apps, and have it wrap around to the beginning? Currently, going from page 1 to page 7 takes six swipes to the left, and from page 7 to page 1 take six swipes to the right. If you could “wrap around” you’d be able to do either in ONE swipe.

Probably too late to get a patent on the “wrap around” idea but when you see it on your iPhone just remember you heard it here first.

If I Were King

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-07-27T09:28:52-07:00

Why can’t I be in charge for just a few minutes? I know everything would be better for everyone. Here’s what I’d do to improve the iPhone (and I’ll bet it could be done in a day):

1. Provide the OPTION to sort applications by name. Or by date downloaded. A to Z, or Z to A, newest in front, or newest in back. User’s choice.

2. Provide an EASIER way to access the settings. On my iPhone, the settings are on page 1. So, if I’m using a program on page 7, as I was last night, and while I’m using that program I decide to adjust the brightness of the screen, the process goes like this:

Press the Home button
Swipe right (moving one page closer to the front)
Swipe right again (another page closer)
Swipe right again (another page closer)
Swipe right again (another page closer)
Swipe right again (another page closer)
Swipe right again (another page closer)
Tap Settings
Tap Brightness
Slide to adjust the brightness
Press the Home button
Swipe LEFT (trying to get back to where I was)
Swipe left (getting closer)
Swipe left (getting closer)
Swipe left (getting closer)
Swipe left (getting closer)
Swipe left (getting closer)
Tap the program I was using

XVIII steps! That’s about XV too many. By the time I’ve done all that, I’ve forgotten what I was doing. At least I got the brightness adjusted. You can bet I don’t do it very often.

3. Provide a QUICK way to get back to recently-used programs. That would help with the problem in #2 above. Scrolling through multiple pages, back and forth, gets old the first day.

4. Provide a QUICK way to move a program from page 7 to page 1. When everything was on one screen, as it was when the iPhone first came out, dragging an icon to place was easy. When you have to jump past six or seven pages to get where you’re going, it’s not easy at all. I end up doing the old “15 puzzle” trick, where you stash something down in the bottom of the screen and then pick it up later from another page.

The iPhone interface is only a year old but it’s creaking already. It worked at first, but in the new “App Store” world it needs some changes. If you happen to talk with Steve Jobs, mention this post. Thank you.

Tip of the Day, July 26th, 2008

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-07-26T22:48:28-07:00

I would imagine that you have a few icons on your desktop. Maybe more than a few. Maybe a lot. Turns out that “a lot” is bad. The problem is that the Finder (which displays the icons) is not very good at dealing with a large number of icons at once. The effect is your machine slows down, just a little, for every icon on the desktop. Incredible, but true. So, if you want your machine to be fast again, reduce the number of items on your desktop. It’s OK to put a couple of folders onto your desktop, and to toss zillions of items into those folders, because when the Finder looks at the desktop it will only “see” the folders (not what’s inside).

iPhone Stuff I Like

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-07-24T21:29:48-07:00

If you have an iPhone, even an old one, you surely know that (as of July 11th) there are gobs of new programs that you can add to an iPhone to make it do cool stuff. Being a “cool stuff” person, and also a “I would rather not pay for something if I don’t have to” person, I have tried just about every FREE iPhone application, and I’m here to tell you what I like. So here we go. Remember, they’re all FREE.

Remote
Lets you drive your iTunes library through the air, using your iPhone. Which means you can change songs, adjust volume, or just plain turn it off, all from your iPhone. You’ll need an Airport network, and it’s most effective when the music is being piped from your computer to a set of speakers far from the computer (otherwise, you’d just adjust things on the computer, right?).

AIM (AOL Instant Messenger)
It has your buddy list and everything, just like iChat. And it doesn’t count against your SMS limit, if you have one. Don’t know what an SMS limit is? Send me an email and I’ll tell you.

Cube Runner
It’s a game, of all things. A game where you fly around through a world of cubes. You try to avoid smashing into the cubes, and you do it by tipping the iPhone this way and that. Amazingly fun.

Movies.app
Specify a zip code and they’ll tell you which movies are playing, and where, and when. You can even buy tickets. Just what you need, assuming you need to go to the movies.

Shazam
Hold your iPhone up to the radio and Shazam tells you the name of the song, and the artist. A couple of taps later you’re buying the song from iTunes. Incredible.

Urbanspoon
Helps you pick a restaurant. Like a slot machine, with one wheel being cities, one wheel being the kind of food, and one wheel being how much money you want to spend. Shake the iPhone to spin the wheels. When the wheels stop you’ll see a restaurant name, and when you tap the name you’ll get reviews and a map. Neat.

Blogging His Way to Millions

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-07-22T17:25:48-07:00

I’ve been hearing (from everyone) that the guy who runs Mac Rumors has quit his doctoring job and is now supporting himself via his daily blogging. Incredible. The key, of course, is traffic-- you need to have lots of people coming to your site so you can get advertisers interested in paying you to display their ads. The more traffic you get, the more money you get. Pretty simple equation.

We don’t have a lot of traffic. Not yet. But we can dream. Tell a friend to check out the Boyce Blog. Who knows, one day you may be saying “I knew him when.”

In the meantime, our advertising rates are going to be “among the most competive in their class.” Whatever that means.

Hickory Dickory Dock

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-07-21T13:22:31-07:00

Apple loves the Dock. Actually, I think Steve Jobs loves the Dock. That’s one way that you can tell us apart: Steve loves the Dock. Plus, he’s a billionaire.

Love it or not, we’re stuck with the Dock. So here’s how to make the best of it. Start by opening up the Dock’s preferences (Apple menu/Dock/Dock Preferences...), and then...

Turn OFF magnification. That will keep the Dock’s items from squirming around when you point at them
Turn OFF “Automatically hide and show the Dock.” It’s easier to hit a target when you can see it. Plus, when your friendly neighborhood computer consultant comes over (ahem) he won’t have to mouse around the perimeter of your screen like a fool, trying to make the Dock appear.
Position the Dock on the RIGHT. You ALWAYS have room to the right, and you ALWAYS run out of room at the bottom. So use what you have an excess of. (Positioning on the LEFT seems like a good idea until a window opens up and to the left... under the Dock... leaving you unable to click the close box.)
Set the Size to LARGE. The Dock will adjust the icons to make them fit. Why squint if you don’t have to?

Special Note to Friends of CBoyce (“FoCB”): it’s OK with me if you do things your own way as long as you try it my way first.

More iPhone stuff

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-07-19T15:37:40-07:00

I hate to say that I’m disappointed in the new iPhone, but I’m disappointed in the new iPhone. And in the new 2.0 software. The new phone just isn’t very much better than the old one. If you don’t have an iPhone at all, I say go get one. But if you have one of the original models, I say don’t bother with the new one.

My original-model iPhone, with the 2.0 software, locks up at least once each day. It never used to. And, the synching takes forever, and when you delete something from the iPhone it mysteriously reappears when you sync, AND when you get a notification on the iPhone that there are software updates, iTunes won’t know anything about it.

This is a GREAT time to be sitting on the sidelines watching it all play out. I am sure that in a few weeks all will be well, but I can tell you that it ain’t well now. Listen to the Voice of Experience.

Shortcut of the day, July 16th, 2008

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-07-16T21:47:09-07:00

You can do a Google search without going to Google first. In Safari, look for the search area at the top right of the screen.

Type in what you’re looking for, hit Enter (or Return) on the keyboard, and there you are, a page full of search results. Sure, you can go to www.google.com and do the search there, but why bother?

Bonus Tip: there’s a tiny triangle pointing down at the far left of Safari’s search area. Click it and you’ll see the last ten things you searched for. Choose something from that list and you’ll do the search again. There’s also a “Clear Recent Searches...” option, in case you want to cover your tracks.

Double-Bonus Tip: try holding the Control key down and clicking on ANY word on a web page. A little menu appears, and one of the options is “Search in Google.” Which means that you can do a Google search without typing anything! Incredible.

iPhone 3G

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-07-16T12:53:12-07:00

I don’t have one yet. Based on what I’ve read, I don’t really need one. The 3G network is nicely fast, when you can get it to work. I’ve read about a lot of people being surprised (disappointed) that 3G doesn’t seem to be in effect in their area even though AT&T’s map says it is. I don’t need that.

I know it’s “only” $200, but I’d still have to go to the store to get it, AND the service plan costs more ($10 more) per month. If I didn’t have an iPhone already I’d run out and get the 3G right now. But since I already have one... I’m in no hurry. The old one, once upgraded to the 2.0 software, is just as capable.

Advice: watch for used first-edition iPhones on eBay etc. I would guess that you could get one for $100.

iPhone 2.0 software

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-07-16T12:44:26-07:00

Well, it’s here: the new 2.0 software for the iPhone. It comes installed on the new iPhone 3G, but it can be downloaded for free and installed on ANY iPhone. So I did it. You should too.

You get a couple of improvements:

1. It’s easier to delete a bunch of emails now.
2. Your iPhone now synchronizes through the air, so when you make a change to your iCal or Address Book it shows up on your iPhone without you having to connect with a cord
3. You get access to the new Apple iPhone Application Store, available through iTunes. Which means you can add programs to your iPhone without having to hack it.

My favorite free applications: a reader for the New York Times, and the Mobile News reader (which can be customized to show news stories for your favorite locations). I also like the talking Spanish-English phrase book from lastminute.com, and AOL’s AIM (instant messenger) which knows your buddy list and saves you money because the text messages you send do not count as “SMS” messages, which you pay for through AT&T.

Would you believe that there is still no copy and paste, that it still takes three taps to get to the brightness adjustment (and then two more, at least, to get back to where you were), and that there’s no voice-dialing? Not good. But what you get, you get for free, so I say get it.

If I were you

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-07-09T12:15:40-07:00

I would never let my Mac sleep. Let the screen go black but keep the machine up and alive. Waking up from sleep has been a problem for Apple over the years-- sometimes machines won’t wake up at all, sometimes their keyboards/mice/printers won’t work, sometimes other problems. If you are connected to another machine (file sharing, or maybe a remote database) going to sleep will drop the connection, causing inconvenience at the least and maybe even data loss.

So do it my way. Go to the Energy Saver Preference Pane (Apple menu, System Preferences, Energy Saver)

and tell it you NEVER want the computer to sleep. Do what you want with the SCREEN sleeping (this will turn the screen black-- in between, you’ll see the Screen SAVER, which is a different affair altogether), but DON’T set screen sleeping to Never. You don’t want the screen to show the same picture forever because it’s hard on the screen.

Shortcut of the day, July 10th, 2008

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-07-09T08:43:17-07:00

Summary only available when permalinks are enabled.

I love football, part 1 (of hundreds)

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-07-08T14:50:35-07:00

I love football, and I especially like the “glamour” games on Monday Night, Sunday Night, and now Thursday Night. I thought it would be handy to have the NFL Prime Time schedule in my iPhone’s calendar, so I got the info from NFL.com and massaged it into an iCal calendar (which then uploads to my iPhone when I sync). You can have the calendar without doing the work: just click the link below.

webcal://ical.mac.com/christianboyce/NFL%20Primetime%202008.ics

iPhone 3G musings

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-07-08T14:36:37-07:00

You probably know that Apple is coming out with a new iPhone, the “iPhone 3G,” this Friday. It looks like the original iPhone. It’s actually a little thicker. It costs less to buy, but the service costs more. What’s a guy with an original iPhone to do?

Here’s what I’m going to do.

1. Download the FREE iPhone 2.0 software update on Friday July 10th. That will give my “old” iPhone new capabilities, and I’d tell you all about them here except that I don’t know what they are. Wait until Friday.

2. Fool around with the old iPhone and the new software. Maybe buy some stuff from Apple’s new “iPhone App” store, online, available via iTunes.

3. Wait for the lines to go away at the Apple store, then get the iPhone 3G.

4. Give “old” iPhone to newphew Spencer, assuming I can squeeze a few buckos out of his parents. The thing cost me $599, remember.

Shortcut of the day, July 6th, 2008

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-07-06T23:25:34-07:00

Hit the Escape key (esc, at top left of keyboard) instead of mousing to and clicking on the “Cancel” button in any dialog box. Bonus Shortcut: Enter (or Return) almost always clicks the default button (the one with the heavier border) in a dialog box. Double-Bonus Shortcut: Command-D almost always clicks the “Don’t Save” button.

Shortcut of the day, July 4th 2008

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-07-04T15:19:18-07:00

Command-click links in Safari to open them in new tabs. Here’s a link to practice with. Command-click it, and look near the top of your Safari window. You’ll see two “tabs” and you can click back and forth between them. Neater and cleaner than opening separate windows.

Look at me, I'm blogging

macman@christianboyce.com — 2008-07-04T00:31:00-07:00

I think, therefore I blog.

Character	Keystroke(s)
• (bullet)	Option-8
¢	Option-4
ñ	Option-n, then n
é	Option-e, then e
™	Option-2
®	Option-r
º (degree symbol)	Option-0 (that's a zero)