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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

No matter how careful you are about putting stuff into your calendar you still have to look at it to see where you're supposed to be. I had the same problem, but not anymore, because I figured out how to have my Mac read my appointments to me out loud, every day, on a timer. It's very cool, and since it's scheduled to run every morning at 7:30 AM, I think it's going to help me out quite a bit. Especially on weekends, when I tend to forget to check the calendar.

I was hoping to do this with an Automator Workflow, and if not for an iCal bug Automator would have been the way to go. I worked pretty hard at making it work with Automator but eventually realized that the reason it didn't work was something I couldn't work around. So I turned to AppleScript.

Here's the script. The gray parts are comments, put there to help you understand what's going on. Note: the script gets you part of the way there. You still need something to trigger the script at the appropriate time. Lots of programs can do that for you. I chose Script Timer, a nice little $12 program that I just found out about. Here's the link. You can get a free 30-day trial.

set the_text to ""
set today to current date
set time of today to 0
set tomorrow to (today) + 86400 -- seconds
--
-- Here are the calendars I want to check. Yours will be different. Change the following line to match the names of your calendars.
-- If you are going to check ALL of your calendars this script could be simplified. Send me an email and I'll help you.
-- Christian Boyce, macman@christianboyce.com
set the_calendar_list to {"CB & A", "usc football 2009", "Cal Football 2009", "Texas Football 2009", "UCLA Football 2009", "Birthdays"}
--
tell application "iCal"
-- First we need to tell iCal which calendars are going to be checked. We match the names in "the_calendar_list" to the names of the actual calendars in iCal. The ones that match are added to our "the_calendars" list.
--
set the_calendars to {}
set every_calendar to every calendar
-- Now we have a list of calendars to check.
repeat with an_item in the_calendar_list
set end of the_calendars to (first calendar whose name is an_item)
end repeat
-- Now we check, on a calendar by calendar basis, for appointments on the current day.
repeat with a_calendar in the_calendars
tell a_calendar
set the_events to (every event whose start date > today and start date < tomorrow)
--
-- Here we sort the list of events for the day. If we don't do this they won't be chronolical. iCal sorts them in creation order unless we run this little "sortEvents" routine.
--
set the_events to my sortEvents(the_events)
-- Now we have a sorted list. Let's create a string for the Mac to speak. Loop through the events and make that string.
set i to 1
repeat with an_event in the_events
set x to properties of an_event
set the_summary to summary of an_event
set the_start_date to start date of an_event
set the_end_date to end date of an_event
set the_start_time to time string of the_start_date
set the_end_time to time string of the_end_date
--
set the_text to the_text & return & "Appointment number" & i & "." & return & the_start_time & " to " & the_end_time & "." & return & summary of an_event & return & return
set i to i + 1
end repeat
end tell
end repeat
--
-- If there aren't any events the string "the_text" will be empty. In that case we want to say something different.
if the_text is "" then
set the_text to "Good morning." & return & "Today is " & date string of (current date) & return & return & "Unfortunately, you have no appointments today."
else
set the_text to "Good morning." & return & "Today is " & date string of (current date) & return & return & "Here are today's appointments." & return & return & the_text & return & "That was the last appointment for today."
end if
end tell
--
-- This is neat: I want to set the volume loud enough for me to hear it, and then set the volume back to where it was before I adjusted it.
set old_volume to output volume of (get volume settings)
set volume output volume 60
say the_text using "Alex"
set volume output volume (old_volume)
--
-- This is the sorting subroutine. I found it on MacScripter.net.
on findLeastItem(lst)
tell application "iCal"
set theLeast to start date of item 1 of lst
set theIndex to 1
set iterater to 1
repeat with i in lst
if start date of i ≤ theLeast then
set theLeast to start date of i
set theIndex to iterater
end if
set iterater to iterater + 1
end repeat

return theIndex
end tell
end findLeastItem

on removeItemAtIndex(lst, theIndex)
set newList to {}
set theLength to length of lst
if theLength = 1 then
set newList to {}
else if theLength = theIndex then
set newList to items 1 thru (theLength - 1) of lst
else if theIndex = 1 then
set newList to items 2 thru theLength of lst
else
set newList to items 1 thru (theIndex - 1) of lst & items (theIndex + 1) thru (theLength) of lst
end if
return newList
end removeItemAtIndex

on sortEvents(myList)
set myNewList to {}
repeat until length of myList = 0
set leastIndex to findLeastItem(myList)
set end of myNewList to item leastIndex of myList
set myList to removeItemAtIndex(myList, leastIndex)
end repeat
return myNewList
end sortEvents

Great Deal on Microsoft Office 2008

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-09-20T10:33:58-07:00

Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home & Student Edition

If you need it, you need it. Buy it from Amazon and you'll pay $119.99. That's thirty bucks off the price you pay at the Apple Store, and since you don't pay tax with Amazon you save even more: $44.580125, to be exact. Yes, you'll have to wait to get it delivered, but there's no shipping charge, and who has an extra $44.580125 these days? Another ten bucks and you'll have enough to get a copy of iWork '09 too.

Use the link above to go straight to it.

Note: using the Amazon links on this page, including the search box at the left, results in Amazon crediting a referral fee to the Boyce Blog, at no cost to you. As long as you're going to buy from Amazon anyway you may as well enjoy knowing that you're helping out your local Mac man.

Your local Mac man appreciates your support.

Genius Mix: cool new iTunes feature

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-09-20T00:54:40-07:00

Apple's new iTunes 9 has a couple of nice new features. One of the nicest is called "Genius Mixes." Previous versions of iTunes has Genius Playlists, which I knew about but never used because it didn't seem all that groovy, but Genius Mixes are exclusive to iTunes 9-- and they are very groovy.

Before we learn about Genius Mixes, let's review Genius Playlists so we have something to compare to.

Genius Playlists
Millions of people use iTunes. Apple figures that, on average, people know how to group songs into collections (playlists) that sound good together. Apple lets iTunes users send information about the songs and playlists on their machines to Apple's servers, and by now, a lot of people have done it. Thus, Apple has a pretty robust set of data from which to draw conclusions about which songs go together and which songs don't. Apple will generate a list of songs that go together for you, based on any single song you choose, and that's a Genius Playlist. The default is a 25-song list (pulling from songs you already own) but Genius Playlists can be up to 100 songs long.

Obviously, you're going to get different Genius Playlists when you choose different songs as starting points. Choosing the "proper" song to use as a starting point becomes a Very Important Thing.

Genius Mixes
Conceptually, a Genius Mix is a lot like a Genius Playlist, except there's no 100-song limit (in fact, there's no limit at all), and there's no need to choose a song to base the playlist on, because Apple analyzes ALL of your songs, then groups them into "mixes" that somehow work together. Play a Genius Mix and the music plays forever, something like your own custom radio station. It's a neat way to rediscover your music, and since it's free, you may as well try.

There is no telling how your music will be "mixed" but Apple made four Genius Mixes out of mine: two Country-Western, one Classical, and one R&B. The more music you have the more mixes they'll make, so don't be surprised if you end up with more than four.

Enough talk. Let's make it happen. Remember that Genius Mixes are an iTunes 9 feature: if you need iTunes 9, here's a link to where you can get it.

Start up iTunes and choose "Turn on Genius" from the Store menu. (If "Turn on Genius" isn't there, it's already turned on. Skip down to Step Two.) You'll get a window asking you (again) to turn on Genius, which you do by clicking a button, signing in to your iTunes Store account, agreeing to Apple's terms, and finally clicking "Continue."

Step Two: wait just a few moments as Apple analyzes your music, then click on one of the mixes. Here's an example (one of mine).

The Mix will begin to play as soon as you click it. You won't see a list of the songs in the Mix so don't bother looking. Just sit back, relax, and listen.

I didn't think the Genius Mix would be all that interesting but I have changed my mind. Now I find myself turning to the Genius Mix rather than any of the playlists that I created by hand. It might turn out the same way for you. Give it a whirl and see.

Your Photo on NationalGeographic.com

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-09-16T19:09:02-07:00

Hey, photographers: National Geographic wants YOU. Rather, they want your pictures. Only if they're good though. Every day they publish "The Daily Dozen" online, twelve photos submitted by regular people. Maybe even you. Some of the photos selected for the Daily Dozen will also be published in National Geographic's print edition. Here's the link to get started. Read the fine print, especially if you're interested in getting paid, because they'll not be paying at all, not ever.

You really should check it out. Here's the Daily Dozen from September 16th, 2009.

You can do it. Let me know if you do.

Sports Calendars for iCal and iPhone

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-09-16T11:31:04-07:00

It’s really handy to have the schedules of your favorite teams on your Mac and iPhone. But, it’s no fun at all to have to type it all in. Luckily for us, someone else has already done it, and all you have to do is know where to click.

Let’s say you want the UCLA Bruin football schedule on your Mac and iPhone. Click this link (using your Mac-- we’ll take care of your iPhone soon enough), and you get a dialog box that looks like this:

Click "Subscribe" and you're halfway there. You'll see another box:

Change the name if you'd like (usually you'll want to shorten it), change the color if you'd like (I like to match the team color, so purple is wrong in this case), and finally change that "Auto-refresh" to "Every Day." If you do that, you'll be up to date if the game time is changed, and you'll be able to click on past games in your calendar to see the scores. Fun.

If you want to get calendars for other football teams, the URL is here:

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/teams

Go to that page, choose your team, then look for the "Scores & Schedules" link. Click that, and (finally) look for the "iCal" link in the "Add Schedule" section near the top.

Note: if you do the work on your Mac you'll actually take care of your iPhone too (that is, the calendars will just show up), assuming you sync your iPhone with your Mac. You probably do. If it's not automatic, you need to get the 3.1 iPhone update. Send me a note if you don't know how to do that.

If you ignore my advice to "do it on the Mac" and instead you start with the iPhone, you'll get the calendars on the iPhone... but they will not automatically show up on the Mac. Start with the Mac. I wouldn't tell you if it wasn't for your own good.

iPhone 3.1 Update

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-09-13T21:47:00-07:00

Last Wednesday’s iPod/iTunes lovefest marked the introduction of the iPhone 3.1 update. I installed it on my iPhone 3GS without a problem though the process was very time-consuming. Figure on at least an hour to get this done. Of course it’s completely automatic: connect your iPhone to your Mac, and when iTunes launches click on the iPhone icon at the left, then Check for Updates. Then go do something else, because you don’t want to mess with the computer while the update is being done.

Keeping in mind that this is a free update*, you get a lot for your money. Apple has a list of the improvements but here’s the Executive Summary:

Genius recommendations for Apps
Genius Mixes
Download ringtones
Organize Apps via iTunes
More flexible synching of music etc.
Remotely lock the iPhone in case you lose it
Voice Control now works with Bluetooth headsets

I’d get a copy of iTunes 9 before you do this (in fact, I think you have to). That’s free too. Here’s the link.

* “Free” means “free if you have an iPhone, $4.95 if you have an iPod Touch.”

Great deal on iWork '09

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-09-13T11:07:55-07:00

You already know that Apple’s iWork ’09 is a lot more fun than Microsoft Office. Right? (If not, click this link and watch videos until you’re convinced.) I recently gave a demonstration of iWork ’09 at the Cap Mac user group in Austin, Texas and after the show everyone wanted to know how to get it for less than the $79 list price.

Well, here’s how. Click this link and you’ll go to Amazon, where you can buy it for $59.99 with free shipping.

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.

The new iTunes (version 9) is easy to navigate if you’ve used any previous version. New features include the ability to actually move music from machine to machine, through the network, and something that lets you organize your iPhone apps just so, on the computer, before synching to your iPhone. Both features are things a lot of us wanted a long time ago. That doesn’t make them any less useful.

The new iPod nano somehow contains a video camera. I predict a giant increase in YouTube posts. The new nano also has an FM receiver in it-- and you can pause the music even though it’s coming through the air. Pretty neat.

Steve Jobs MC’d the event. There was a very long and sincere round of appreciative applause from the crowd when Mr. Jobs came out. You can watch it all by clicking here.

Apple Event September 9th

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-09-07T21:49:30-07:00

Apple will hold a special event, centered on iPods and iTunes, Wednesday September 9th in San Francisco. The event is called “It’s only rock and roll, but we like it.” As usual, there are plenty of people guessing at what Apple has up its sleeve. I can guess too, but why bother? We’ll all know in a couple of days. In the meantime, here’s my advice: don’t buy an iPod before Wednesday.

Here’s the front of the invitation that Apple sent out.

Scroll through Mail messages the easy way

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-09-04T10:29:26-07:00

You learned way back in July of 2008 that pressing the spacebar in Safari will scroll the window down. You also learned that holding the shift key and pressing the spacebar in Safari will scroll the window up. I just figured out that the same moves work in Apple’s Mail program. Press the spacebar to scroll down, hold the shift key and press the spacebar to scroll up. Incredible. What a time-saver.

Bonus: if you’re reading an email and you’re scrolling along with the space bar, and then you come to the end of the message so there’s nothing left to scroll, and then you press the spacebar again, the Mail program will jump to the next message. This works perfectly when your mail is sorted with the new stuff at the BOTTOM. It works in reverse if the new stuff is at the top. Try it and see.

Thanks to Dave for the bonus hint.

Time Machine to the rescue

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-29T13:42:23-07:00

I mentioned in a previous post that installed 10.6 “Snow Leopard” on my MacBook, didn’t like it, and “rolled back” to 10.5.8. Rolling back meant using Time Machine, and I’m here to sing its praises and to talk you into using it.

What’s Time Machine?
Time Machine is backup software provided as part of Mac OS X 10.5 (and 10.6). It backs up EVERYTHING on your hard disk(s). All you need is a place to put it. Typically that’s an external hard drive, this one from Amazon. (This is a very nice drive: pre-formatted for the Mac, saving you the trouble of reformatting). All you do is connect the drive. The Mac will detect the drive, ask you if you want to use it for your Time Machine backup, and you say “yes.” That’s it.

You can read Apple’s official Time Machine write-up here.

How do I use it?
For backing up, you do nothing. Everything is automatic. Your entire hard drive will be backed up when you first connect the drive, and from then on Time Machine backs up everything that’s changed in the last hour. If it hasn’t changed, Time Machine doesn’t back it up. That saves space.

Obviously this can’t go on forever, because you’d run out of space on the backup drive. So, Apple stores 24 hourly backups, a month’s worth of daily backups, and weekly backups after that. When you are close to running out of space Time Machine lets you know.

How do I get stuff back?
So, now you want to retrieve an accidentally deleted file. Or your QuickBooks file’s gone bad and you know it worked yesterday, so you want to get that one back. All you do is start up the Time Machine application (in your Mac’s Applications folder), and from there get overwhelmed, and from there call me. I can show you how to get your files back from my command post at Boyce Labs. After you’ve done it once it’s a snap. Regardless of whether you need my help or not, be assured that your stuff is there, backed up.

How do I completely restore my Mac, such as going back to 10.5 after installing 10.6?
Excellent question. First, you start from a DVD such as the 10.6 installer. Then, you look for a menu titled “Utilities.” Then, you choose “Restore System from Backup.” After that, you choose your backup disk (that’s easy-- there is probably only one). You then get to choose which edition to back up from. All of your backups are listed, along with the dates and the operating system version. That makes it easy. In my case, I chose the latest 10.5.8 backup, and was off to the races. It was a slow race (3 hours plus) but in the end, I was back on 10.5.8.

Is that all there is to it?
Ah, no. Not quite. I noticed a few little odd things on my restored 10.5.8 machine. First, after restoring, Mail acted as if it was launching for the first time, doing the same import steps that it did when I went from 10.4 to 10.5. Second, my Address Book and iCal and Bookmark synching via Mobile Me needed to be reset. That wasn’t a big deal for me but might throw a beginner off.

The Stirring Conclusion
Get an external disk. Set up Time Machine. There’s no easier way to back up and when you need it, Time Machine will save the day.

Snow Leopard: I say "Wait."

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-29T12:58:25-07:00

Wish I could say “Go get it, install it, you’ll be very happy” but I can’t. I installed Snow Leopard on my MacBook yesterday, had a few problems, and went back to 10.5.8. My advice: wait until Apple has a 10.6.1 update before installing Snow Leopard. That’s what I’m going to do.

There are plenty of nice additions and refinements in Snow Leopard but it’s the things that didn’t work that wrecked the deal for me. Here’s what I found in an hour of having Snow Leopard installed:

Printing was very, very slow.
The machine ran very hot (no fun to work on a hot laptop).
RapidWeaver (the program I use to make this website) wouldn’t run.
1Password wouldn’t work without a work-around that I didn’t want to do.

I don’t think that my experience is unique. Certainly my machine isn’t anything out of the ordinary, and I’m using mainstream software that lots of others use. So, I expect that Apple and the others will hear about these issues in some way or another, and when they do they’ll fix them.

Maybe we should get Steve Jobs to be a fan of Christian Boyce and Associates on Facebook. If you see him, mention it.

This, by the way, is the 100th post to the Boyce Blog.

Command-D, your time-saving friend

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-26T21:00:27-07:00

I’ll bet you’ve seen a dialog box like this before:

Or maybe like this one:

Or this one:

You probably already know the keyboard shortcut that lets you click the Save button without using the mouse: you hit Enter, or Return. That’s great, when you want it. But what about the rest of the time? What about when you really don’t care about the document, and you DON’T want to save the changes? How can you click the Don’t Save button from the keyboard?

The answer, in almost every case, is Command-D. Memorize this one (D for Don’t is the way I remember it) and you’ll reach for the mouse a little less. That will save you a little bit of time over and over and over. Try it and see.

Snow Leopard Highlights

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-25T14:26:11-07:00

Based on Apple’s “Snow Leopard Enhancements and Refinements” page, we have some nice stuff to look forward to in Mac OS X 10.6. Here’s a quick list of what matters most to me.

Rewritten Finder. Finally, after all these years, Apple has rewritten the Finder, in Cocoa. They’ve been telling everyone else to use Cocoa for years and finally Apple’s doing it themselves. This will make the Finder faster. Yay.
Faster Time Machine backups. Faster is better. (If you are not using Time Machine, email me and let me talk you into it. Time Machine will save the day for you someday.)
More info in the Airport Menu. Now you can tell which signal is the strongest, so when you are “borrowing” internet from the neighbors you’ll know which neighbor to borrow from.
Automatic updating of printer drivers! Hallelujah. I really hope this works. I’ve seen enough of HP’s “Support & Drivers” page to last a lifetime.
Automatic text substitution. This is the thing that turns “teh” into “the” and “recieve” into “receive” in Microsoft Word, Entourage, etc. Now it will work in Mac programs such as Mail, iCal, and who knows where else. This will speed up your typing. Mine too.
Better iChat reliability and other iChat improvements. I love this one. We use iChat to provide screen-sharing remote support, and when it works, it’s great-- and now it’s going to work more often. Super.
Faster/better Mail program. It’s supposed to be faster at everything: faster to launch, faster to display the contents of a folder, faster to search, faster to move messages.
Microsoft Exchange compatibility. If your workplace has an Exchange server, this matters a lot to you. Otherwise, no. Basically it lets you use Mail, iCal, and Apple’s Address book on your Mac rather than Outlook on a PC. A much better solution than Entourage, by the way.
Faster in almost every way. That’s a good thing.
Date in the menu bar! I can’t believe it took this long.

This is my list in advance of actually having the software installed. Let’s see whether I come up with a different list once it’s installed.

Snow Leopard, available August 28th

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-24T15:43:38-07:00

Looky here-- Apple finished Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) early! The software, which costs $29 for Macs with 10.5 already installed, will be available this Friday.

If you want to know more about Snow Leopard, scroll down (or click here).

If you want to buy a copy of Snow Leopard, scroll down a little more (or click here).

I will install Snow Leopard as soon as possible and report my findings, good and bad. Stay tuned.

More About the Dock (part 2)

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-22T16:36:35-07:00

Every Mac has a Dock, and every Dock has things in it, and just about everyone clicks on things in the Dock to launch various programs. Nothing wrong with that, nothing at all... but you can do more with the Dock than just click on things. For example:

Let’s say you have something on your desktop (or in a folder) and you want to send that thing as an email attachment. The typical routine is something like this (and let’s keep track of the clicks):

Launch your email program (Apple Mail or Entourage, probably) or switch to it. That’s one click.
Make a new email message. That could be one click, or a trip to the menu bar.
Click the Attachment button. We’re up to three clicks.
Hunt around in the box that comes up and try to find the thing you want to attach. This could take a lot of clicks.
Optional step 5: fail to find the thing you want to attach and give up.

Even if you do find your item and attach it there’s a lot of work involved. At least four clicks, and no guarantee of success. Better to do it in ONE STEP. Check it out:

Here’s a nice picture of a duck. I want to send it as an attachment.

All I have to do is drag it to the Mail icon. Mail will create a new email message with the duck as an attachment. One step, simple as that.

Here’s the result.

One step, and I’m ready to address and send my email-with-an-attachment. Easy as pie. Try it!

That there’s a one-step drag-and-drop method should not be a complete surprise to you. The Macintosh is full of nice touches and there is almost always an easier and faster way to do things. Dragging and dropping will come into play over and over as you use your Mac, and since dragging and dropping is a one-click effort, it will always be the easiest way to do things (measuring by number of clicks).

More About the Dock (part 1)

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-17T20:21:53-07:00

I wrote about the Dock (“Hickory Dickory Dock”) in July of last year. It was a decent little article and the stuff I wrote then is still helpful today. Lately, though, I’ve noticed that a lot of Mac users are unaware of some of the Dock’s finer points. Here, then, is More About the Dock (part 1).

Here’s a very plain and sparsely populated Dock. Just a few items in it. No one’s Dock looks this empty, but it’s going to make our examples neater and cleaner.

Let’s review: the items in the Dock in the first picture are there because someone (either you or Apple) put them there. They are permanently there (well, permanently until you drag them out of the Dock, on purpose or by accident). Other items appear in the Dock temporarily, just to the left of the dashed line in the Dock (or, if your Dock is vertical, just above the dashed line), whenever you launch them-- only to disappear when you quit.

Here we have the same Dock as in the first picture, with the addition of iChat. iChat is there because I went to the Applications folder and double-clicked on iChat. The iChat icon will remain in the Dock until I quit iChat-- and then it will disappear, leaving the Dock looking like the first picture again. And that means I’ll have to go to the Applications folder and double-click iChat the next time (and every time) I want to use it. Sort of a drag.

Speaking of drags, of course I could drag iChat to the Dock to permanently install it there. But that would mean planning ahead. The following method lets you install something into the Dock “on the fly,” when you happen to notice that there’s something in the Dock that would be a handy item to have in the Dock all the time. And, it’s as easy as clicking and holding on the icon in question.

Here, I’ve clicked and held (that’s important) on the iChat icon. Look at the little menu that pops up. All you have to do is read. Easy. For example:

if you want to keep that item in the Dock, slide up to “Keep in Dock” (see below).

If you want the program to run automatically at login (which, for most of us, means “after a restart”) all you have to do is choose “Open at Login.” Easy as pie. See below.

Two more handy menu items are “Show in Finder” and “Quit.” Both do exactly what you’d expect. You should try them and see.

Of course this works with any program, not just iChat. I mention it for those who are reading this late at night.

Watch this space (or the space right above it) for More About the Dock (part 2), coming soon.

Customize Safari's Toolbar

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-12T00:12:34-07:00

Safari’s a nice browser but you can make it nicer by customizing the toolbar. What you learn in this blog post will help you in other programs (Mail, the Finder, Pages, Keynote, and many more) so you’re getting a lot for your money here.

This is Safari’s toolbar, right out of the box. (This is Safari 4 but it’s similar in version 3.) Click the toolbar below for a larger version.

Pretty basic. You get “back,” “forward,” and “Add to Bookmarks.” Ho hum.

But... if you choose “Customize Toolbar...” from Safari’s View menu, you get this (click the picture for a larger version):

Wowee, choices galore! Do what they tell you: drag buttons up and into the toolbar. If you change your mind, drag them off the toolbar. Arrange them any which way you like. It’s your toolbar: do what you want to it.

Here’s what I did to mine. Check out these buttons, working from left to right (and click the picture for a larger version):

Back one page
Forward one page

Smaller text and pictures (Safari 4-- in version 3, it’s just smaller text)
Larger text and pictures (see above)

Auto-fill (fills in web page forms with the information on your card in your Address Book)

1Password (not free, but really cool. Read about it further down in the blog)

Print

Home (takes you back to the page Safari starts with)

Top Sites (drag the little picture to the left of “http”-- in this case, the Apple logo-- to the Top Sites icon to add it to Top Sites, and click on Top Sites to see what your Top Sites are.

Add to Bookmarks

Customizing the toolbar is fun, and you can’t break it. If you really mess up and want to start over just drag the standard set back up to the toolbar.

Apple’s Mail program (and Keynote, and the Finder, and Pages, etc.) work the same way. You know everything you need now to customize toolbars there too. Try it and let me know how it goes.

Bigger Wednesday

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-11T20:58:42-07:00

Long-time readers may remember “Big Wednesday” (July 30th, 2008) as the Boyce Blog’s first 50-visit day. You can scroll down and read all about it. In case you don’t scroll down, the gist of the blog entry was “Today 50, tomorrow 100. Tell a friend.”

Well, it took a little longer than I thought it would (maybe everyone told the same friend?), but the Boyce Blog has indeed had its first 100-visit day, and what do you know, it happened on a Wednesday: August 5th, 2009. At this rate (roughly an additional visit per week) the Boyce Blog will have its first 1000-visit day November 25th, 2026. Truly something to be thankful for.

Here’s a beautiful chart showing “Bigger Wednesday”-- and at the far right, you’ll see we’re continuing to set records in terms of visits.

In celebration of Big and Bigger Wednesdays, Christian Boyce and Associates is offering all Boyce Blog readers a 50% discount for work performed on Wednesdays between now and September 30th, 2009. When you make your appointment say “I read about Big Wednesday on the Boyce Blog.”

Remember, this offer is for Boyce Blog readers only. This is your reward for your faithful readership.

Next stop: 500 visits in a day. Tell a friend and let’s get it done.

iPhone Tip of the Year

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-05T13:34:44-07:00

Having your entire address book with you, always up to date, is mighty handy. Being able to search your address book is also mighty handy as it keeps you from scrolling through hundred of iPhone screens to get to the name you want. The problem is, sometimes you find yourself way down deep in your address book, alphabetically speaking, and the search box is way up at the top. Scrolling to the top of the list a screen at a time will drive you nuts. Today’s tip won’t keep you from going bonkers but if that does end up happening it won’t be because you can’t get to the search box quickly. Read on.

Here’s where you want to be: at the search screen.

But here’s where you are: down in the P section of your contacts.

How to get from where you are to where you want to be? Well, some would tell you to touch that tiny little magnifying glass at the top right of the screen, just above the “A” in the A-Z list. Good luck doing that-- you will probably hit the “+” instead, adding a new contact when you don’t want one.

The answer, it turns out, is to touch the time. That’s right, just touch the time (at the top center of the screen). Do that and you’re instantly brought to the top of your address list. Bonus: it shows you your phone number too. The magnifying glass doesn’t do that. And sometimes you need a little help remembering your own phone number. Depends on how much sleep you got.

Here’s what it looks like.

Touch where it says “Search” and you’re on your way to filtering down the list to whatever it is you type.

Note: the search is dynamic: the more you type, the fewer names show up, and it happens letter by letter. You don’t hit “Return” or “Enter” or anything like that-- different from searching in Google, for example.

Note #2: The search looks at first name, last name, and company. It does not search notes and it does not search email addresses. That’s the way it goes.

Note #3 (added after someone pointed this out to me): you won’t see your phone number above the search box if you start in the Contacts app. I never use that app, choosing instead to click the Contacts button at the bottom center of the Phone app. If you do it that way (starting in the Phone app, and then touch contacts at the bottom center-- as shown in the picture above), you do get to see your own phone number.

You’re probably wondering what makes this the iPhone Tip of the Year. It’s nice and all, but Tip of the Year? YES-- because this “touch the time” thing works in EVERY program that scrolls vertically. Safari is one (touch the time and you’re right back at the top of the page, with the Google search box at the right as a bonus). Mail is another (touch the time and you’re at the top of the page, with a search box for searching your mail!). The iPod app works that way too (and also gives you a search box). So does iTunes. I am sure there are others, as this feature is part of the iPhone’s operating system, a built-in function just waiting for iPhone apps to call it.

If you find another app where the touch-the-time method works, let me know and I’ll post it here.

Trivia Time: Mac OS X Cats

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-02T10:42:58-07:00

You probably know that Mac OS X 10.5 is known as “Leopard.” You might also know that 10.6 is called “Snow Leopard.” Turns out that Apple has used the name of a large cat as a code name for every version of Mac OS X, starting with “Cheetah” for version 10.0. Meow!

Here’s the entire list. Memorize it and impress your friend(s) with your trivial Macintosh knowledge!

Mac OS X 10.0: Cheetah
Mac OS X 10.1: Puma
Mac OS X 10.2: Jaguar
Mac OS X 10.3: Panther
Mac OS X 10.4: Tiger
Mac OS X 10.5: Leopard
Mac OS X 10.6: Snow Leopard

Snow Leopard is coming

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-08-02T09:01:48-07:00

Apple’s next version of the Mac OS is called Snow Leopard. It’s not out yet, but it will be soon, and I am already getting questions about it. Here are the answers.

What’s Snow Leopard? Snow Leopard is Mac OS X 10.6. Rather than introduce hundreds of new features, Snow Leopard is focussed on being faster than 10.5 (Leopard), with fewer bugs. I didn’t notice a lot of bugs in 10.5 so I think the thing we’ll appreciate the most in 10.6 is speed. People who need Exchange Server support (you know who you are-- you’re the ones who wanted to see your company’s calendar and address book like your PC-using coworkers) will appreciate Snow Leopard’s ability in that area. It’s easy as pie to set up.

When can I get it? Apple says “September 2009.” Note that when Apple says “September” they don’t mean “September 1st.” So, we don’t really know when it’s coming, but sometime before September 30th, 2009. Whenever it does come out, it will be standard on all new Macs, but of course you can buy it on a DVD for your existing Mac.

By the way, the “June 8” date is a clue that Apple is aiming for a September 8th, 2009 Snow Leopard release date. Three months’ lead time.

What’s it cost? If you have 10.5 already, and you bought your machine before June 8th, 2009, the cost is $29. Click to pre-order Snow Leopard from Amazon. That’s pretty good. If you don’t have 10.5 already, you’ll have to buy one of Apple’s Box Sets (iWork, iLife, and Snow Leopard), for $169.

If you bought a Mac after June 8th, 2009, you are eligible for a $9.95 “Up-To-Date” program, direct from Apple. May as well do it now.

Will it work on my Mac? Maybe. If you have an Intel-based Mac, yes, it will work. If you don’t, no, it won’t work. Look at “About This Mac” under the Apple menu. You’ll see something like this (without the red part, but that’s where you need to look):

If it says “Intel” in the Processor section you’re all set. If it says “G4” or “G5” I’m sorry to say that 10.5 is as high as it goes for for that Mac.

Here are links for every possible Snow Leopard-related need. Using these links supports the Boyce Blog so I’ll thank you in advance.

Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard, $29

Mac OS X Snow Leopard Family Pack (5-User), $49

Mac Box Set - (with Snow Leopard), $169

Mac Box Set Family Pack with Snow Leopard (5-User), $229

Mac OS X Server version 10.6 Snow Leopard, $499
(No, you almost certainly don’t need the server version)

iPhone 3G vs. iPhone 3GS

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-07-26T21:36:29-07:00

In the market for an iPhone? Tempted by the 3G at $99? Wondering whether the 3GS is worth an extra $100? Wonder no more. The answer is yes, it’s worth it. Here’s what you miss by not getting the 3GS.

Better camera for still pictures (3 megapixels vs. the 3G’s 2 megapixels, autofocus, exposure control)
Video recording and editing (and built-in sending to YouTube and/or email and/or MobileMe)
Voice control (for dialing, for playing songs)
Faster web browsing (and faster network performance in general)
Compass (for knowing which way the map should be oriented)

The compass bears a little extra explanation. Most people think that the built-in compass is a toy, something for Boy Scouts maybe. Certainly not something useful to a city-dweller. As it turns out, the compass is something that turns out to be VERY useful. You might not use it directly, but some of the neatest apps on the iPhone rely on it. Here are a couple worth checking out, for those with a 3GS already:

Map (built-in app). When you show a map, and tap the location button, it shows where you are. Tap it again and it spins the map around so it’s oriented the way you’re facing. Can’t do that without a compass.

New York Nearest Subway (pending approval from the Apple Store). You see a map of the subway system at first... then you tilt the iPhone up as if you were going to take a picture. You see the picture-- and you also see, overlayed, the subway stations that are in that direction. You also get the distance to them. This makes it very easy to find a subway station.

Click here to see a video of New York Nearest Subway in action.

Pretty neat. And it is only for the iPhone 3GS, because it relies on the compass to know which way you’re aiming.

It’s easy to imagine a whole bunch of compass-using apps, such as one that would show gas stations or ATMs or bathrooms in the direction you’re facing, or another that would tell you the name of the mountain you’re looking at. These apps don’t exist today but I am sure they will soon (even if I have to write them myself).

My advice to anyone choosing between the 3G and the 3GS is “get the 3GS.” The extra $100 will hurt the moment you spend it but you’ll be glad you did it every day after that, multiple times a day.

It's "iPhone 3GS," not "iPhone 3G S"

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-07-26T20:35:20-07:00

I don’t know if it’s official or not but it appears that the new iPhone-- previously known as the “iPhone 3G S”-- is now known as the “iPhone 3GS.” The space between the “G” and the “S” has disappeared. Not sure when this happened but I’m glad of it, as it was awkward to type the other way. I point this out as a public service announcement.

Rumor has it that Steve Jobs didn’t like the space, and that all references to “iPhone 3G (space) S” on the Apple website were changed to “iPhone 3GS” within a day of his return to full-time work. I can’t tell you whether it’s true or not but it’s a nice story anyhow.

Newspapers Around the World

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-07-24T17:22:06-07:00

Here’s a website that shows you newspapers from around the world.

Point to a city and see the front page of today’s paper for that city. Click on a city and you’ll see the front page zoomed in. Look around (top right) for links to that newspaper’s website etc. Really fun. Thanks to my friend Gene for showing the site to me.

Take better pictures with your iPhone

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-07-22T00:38:49-07:00

iPhone pictures often look shaky. People blame the iPhone, and get used to lousy results. That’s a drag, because the iPhone can take really good pictures. Here are some very nice pictures that were taken with an iPhone. Here’s another iPhone photo gallery.

Turns out that shaky pictures aren’t caused by the iPhone. Shaky pictures are caused by you. That’s because the iPhone takes a picture when you let go of the button, not when you touch it-- the opposite of what you’d expect. So, as you stab quickly at the shutter button, trying to take the picture at just the right moment, you’re knocking the iPhone around and you’re probably not even paying attention to what you’re doing when you take your finger off the button-- and, as you now know, that’s the moment of truth.

Since the picture’s going to be taken when you let go of the button, the trick is to already be holding the button while you wait for the perfect moment to take the picture. Press and hold the iPhone’s camera shutter button as you compose the shot, and then, gently and controlled, let go. Click! Result: a very nice, no-shake picture. Try it. It will work for you.

Note: even if you’re not gentle and not controlled, it’s hard to shake the iPhone by taking your finger OFF of the button. You probably won’t shake it no matter how hard you try. I’m telling you, as soon as you try this method you’ll take better pictures, so try it right now!

Look over there

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-07-16T10:50:51-07:00

We’ve made two small-but-important improvements in the Boyce Blog set-up. Look to the left, under the “iChat Status” button, and you’ll see categories where you used to see months. Click a category and you’ll see all of the blog entries that match. We’ve categorized every entry, so this should be pretty handy for you. This is a free upgrade.

We’ve also added an “RSS Feed” link. Click it and see what happens. If you get something that looks like the picture shown below, great-- we’ll keep going. (If instead you get something asking you about Mail, cancel and wait for the next installment.)

Notice that the RSS Feed version of the Boyce Blog gives you an article count (sort of interesting), a search field (very interesting), and an Article Length slider (very useful, and lots of fun).

Drag the slider to the left and you get something like this:

Drag it all the way to the left and you get something like this.

Click a story (in bold) and you’ll see the entire article, on the original website. Neat.

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and it’s a lot bigger than the Boyce Blog. You will see RSS links on many sites, and you’ll see RSS buttons in the address bar of many websites. All you do is click. It’s a neat way to scan a lot of articles. Click one and you get the whole thing.

Here are a couple of examples.
Click the RSS button on the New York Times website...

and you get this.

Click the RSS button on ESPN’s site...

and you get this.

Really neat.

Charge your iPhone the RIGHT way

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-07-15T19:39:37-07:00

You’re probably thinking “what a waste of time-- what’s so hard about charging an iPhone? Just plug it into the wall, right? Right?”

Wrong. Well, technically “right”, except my way is even more right. And my way is “plug it into the computer.” Here’s why.

Plugging into the wall charges the iPhone. That’s all it does. Plugging into the computer will also charge the iPhone, but does more:

It creates a backup, automatically, of everything on the iPhone. If you lose the iPhone, or it breaks, you can connect the new one to your computer and load your old data. This leads to This Important Tip: connect your iPhone to your computer every day.
It allows you to synchronize contacts and calendars without using Apple’s $99 MobileMe service for through-the-air synching.
It allows you to bring in music and videos and iPhone apps, through iTunes and the iTunes Store.

You already have the right cable-- just pull it out of the AC adapter and plug it into the computer.

Note: if you have multiple computers you will have to decide which one to use for the charging. Pick one and keep using it. It’s possible to set things up so you can sync and backup from one computer, and charge from multiple others-- tell me you want to know how and I’ll send you a note.

Naturally it is OK with me if you get an adapter to let you charge the iPhone in the car. In fact, I think that’s a great idea. Just be sure that you buy an adapter made specifically for the iPhone. If you get one that was made for an iPod you’ll be able to connect it just fine... but it will drain, rather than charge, your iPhone.

iPhone Maps Super-Tips

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-07-14T21:49:54-07:00

They don’t give you much of a manual when you buy an iPhone, and that’s too bad because there are lots and lots of cool features that aren’t obvious right off the bat. The Maps app is a case in point. Here, then, are some hints for using the Maps app. Try ‘em.

Tip #1: Use the Current Location button.
See where the red arrow’s pointing? That’s the “Current Location” button. Touch it, and assuming you have either cell phone or WiFi coverage (or both), you’ll see a map with your location indicated by a blue pin and a blue circle. Knowing where you are is a huge advantage, even if you end up calling someone to get directions rather than do it all yourself. Note: the Current Location button is happy to oblige at 10:02 PM, and even later.

Tip #2: Use the Search feature.
You can see my location indicated by that blue pin and the blue circle. (A small circle indicates good accuracy. A large circle indicates bad accuracy.)

This is Google Maps, friends, so you can search for anything. I think I’ll look for a nearby place to get coffee, but you could search for ATMs, books, hamburgers, gas stations, whatever. Start by tapping where the red arrow points.

As soon as you touch the Search field a little keyboard shows up. Type what you want, then tap the big blue Search button.

Looky what I found-- some coffee places, indicated with red pins on the map. Super. The nearest one has a little label showing you what it is. You can click on the other red pins to find out what they are too. This leads us to our next tip, which is...

Tip #3: Touch the white chevron in the blue circle (highlighted here in red, though it won’t be on your iPhone). This will lead to more info.

Here’s what you get-- phone number, home page, address, and some handy buttons for getting directions. Usually, the one you want is “Directions To Here.” For now, let’s just go back by tapping the “Map” button at top left.

You may have noticed another little button at the left side of the pin’s label. That indicates “Street View,” the amazing photographic representation of the place. Touch it (circled in red here).

When you touch that button you get Street View, which in this case looks like so:

(Yes, it’s sideways. Street View is always sideways. Just rotate the iPhone.)

Tip #4: drag around on the photo in Street View to show the other side of the street. Or, when you’re viewing down a street, tap the big arrows in the street to “drive” in that direction. Street View is sort of a gimmick, but when you’re trying to find the Coffee Bean it can be handy to know it’s a white building with a tree in front.

Tip #5: touch the circle (highlighted here with the red arrow) to get out of Street View and back to the map.

Tip #6: tap anywhere other than on a pin or its label to hide all the labels. You’ll see something like this:

Tip #6: Tap the Page Curl button. I’m pointing to it with the red arrow.

Look at all those options.

Showing Traffic is handy (green is fast, yellow is not so fast, red is bad). The Map view is what you’ve been looking at the whole time. The Satellite view shows you an overhead photo of the map. The Hybrid view shows you the Satellite view, with the Map view drawn on top of it. Use the List button when you want directions in list form rather than graphically.

If you tap the Show Traffic button you get something like this. Note that they don’t show traffic on surface streets unless they happen to be state highways, and they won’t display freeway traffic everywhere (such as out in the country). It’s hard to complain though, considering it’s a free service. Thank you Google.

Looks like it’s going to be a smooth drive. 10 PM is like that.

One more tip for you.

Tip #7: double-tap with one finger to zoom in. Double-tap with TWO fingers to zoom out. Sure, you can pinch and un-pinch, but double-tapping is easier, at least for me.

Here’s the map after a couple of one-finger double-taps:

And here’s the map after a couple of two-finger double-taps. Pretty neat.

In case you wondered, the purple pin is a pin I dropped myself. That’s an option under the page-curl button. You drop a pin when you want to remember where you were.

OK, that’s it. Lots of little hints that add up to Total Maps Mastery. I could do the same thing for every standard iPhone app, and probably will, but it’s going to take a little while. Send me a note and tell me which app you want to know more about and I’ll prioritize by popular demand.

New York Times iPhone news reader

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-07-09T22:27:56-07:00

I still prefer a “real” newspaper to any electronic version, and if you ask I’ll get all poetic and tell you why. In the meantime, here’s one of my favorite iPhone apps: The New York Times reader. By the way, it’s free. It would be a bargain at twice the price. Heh.

You can click any of the pictures here to go to the iTunes Store and download the program yourself. FYI.

(In case you were wondering why I don’t just use Safari on the iPhone and go to www.nytimes.com, the answer is that it’s a lot more convenient to have the news formatted to fit the iPhone automatically. Plus, as you will soon see, the iPhone app has features the website doesn’t.)

The New York Times reader’s been around from Day One of the App Store, and it’s been improved over and over. At this point it’s a very handy and nice reader, with easy navigation, a simple search feature, a button to email a story to a friend, a button to save a story for future reference, an easy way to make the text bigger, and so on and so on and so on.

Here’s what it looks like when you bring it up-- nice, fresh news, “updated moments ago.”

(Yes, there are ads, but you can ignore them. )

Here’s what you get when you click on a story.

If you need larger print, click the big T. Here’s how that looks:

See that Envelope icon at the left? Touch that to email the story to someone. See the Save button? Touch that to save the story for future viewing. You’ll see a “Saved” button in the first picture here-- that’s your list of saved stories. Nice.

Want more? There’s more.
You can, on the first screen, touch the Search button and search. Here’s an example:

Need your news categorized? Touch the “More” button.

From there you can choose a section and read all about it.

I like it. Free, always up to date, always with me-- a terrific thing. It doesn’t pile up when you go on vacation and it doesn’t come off on your hands. About all you can’t do with the NY Times iPhone app is wrap a fish in it. Maybe in a future version.

Safari 4 Tip of the Day

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-07-07T12:21:26-07:00

Usually, when you close a Safari window, you mean to do it. But sometimes you make a mistake and close the wrong one. That’s when you say “Come baaaaaack...” and of course it doesn’t.

Next time that happens, try this:

Go to Safari’s History menu and choose the well-named “Reopen Last Closed Window.” It looks like this:

And it works.

Right below “Reopen Last Closed Window” is “Reopen All Windows from Last Session.” That one’s great for when you quit Safari and then regret it (this is especially bad when you have lots of windows open). Start Safari up again, choose “Reopen All Windows from Last Session,” and you’re right back in business.

Try these things out before you need them. Muscle memory and all that.

Great deal on VirusBarrier X5

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-07-02T10:27:58-07:00

The debate over whether there’s a need for anti-virus software on Macs rages on. Some people saying that anti-virus programs slow down your Mac, and are expensive, and basically a waste of time and money since there aren’t any Mac viruses (not true, by the way). Other people say that there are zillions of Word and Excel viruses, and even though they don’t affect a Mac like they do a PC they will cause trouble for people with PCs when you pass on an infected document through email.

The second group of people are right, and they’re even more right now that we have an inexpensive, unobtrusive anti-virus program. It is called Intego VirusBarrier X5, and it costs $69 direct from the manufacturer. However... as of this moment, a 5-user pack, which normally costs $199, now costs $99. Half off, roughly speaking. It was a good deal when it was $199 for 5, a great deal at $99 for 5.

If Microsoft Word asks you to save the Normal Template every time you quit it that’s a sign of being infected. Get a copy of VirusBarrier and the problem will go away.

Note the USB connector on the end of the “syringe.”

Here’s a link to Intego’s store. Here’s a link to a 30-day free trial! Can’t beat that.

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

I just learned of an iPhone app called “Snappr.” It’s amazing.

Click here to get the free Snappr app. Launch it, then “scan” a barcode by taking a picture of it using your iPhone’s camera. The picture is sent to Snappr’s servers, where the code is actually read. In a few seconds they tell you how much that thing would cost at Amazon.com, Yahoo.com, and a few others. That way, before you buy that big flat-screen TV as a present for your older brother’s 47th birthday this coming July so he can watch college football games while typing his fingers off in an effort to make the world a better place for Mac and iPhone users everywhere, you-- Brother Spencer-- could check that you were getting a good deal.

I will demonstrate with a box of Rice-a-Roni, recently purchased at my local grocery store. Let’s find out whether I got a good deal.

Here’s the bar code (as seen in the Snappr app after I took the picture)...

And here’s how much it would cost at “Meijer,” wherever that is.

I don’t want 12 boxes but it’s nice to know that it would cost $14.71 for the dozen. I only paid 99 cents for my box so I’m feeling pretty good.

Let’s try something a little different: a CD.

Here’s the bar code (a little blurry)...

And here’s what comes back from Snappr.

Pretty neat. Of course, I already bought it, but suppose I was in the store looking at CDs and was only thinking about buying it. Armed with the price info from Amazon & Yahoo I would know whether I should buy it at the store or not.

Pretty cool stuff.

Snappr says that you have to have a special macro lens on your iPhone to take the bar code pictures properly, but I say you don’t. I took those bar code pictures with my stock iPhone 3G S and everything turned out fine. If you DO want a macro lens, get this case for your iPhone (from Griffin), as it has a little slide-out lens and it does make a difference. You can always try taking a picture of a bar code without the macro lens-- it’s a free app, so it costs nothing to try. (The iPhone 3G S’ camera is Apple’s best camera yet, so maybe the Snappr people just need to update their website.)

Read more about Snappr here. I say check it out.

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

I bought a new iPhone last week-- the 3G S, 16 gigabytes of storage, in vivid black. It looks just like the 3G it replaces but has a few new doodads inside. And it has “S,” which stands for “Speed.”

Here are some pictures.

Here’s a list of the things I like about my new iPhone 3G S.

It was easy to order from Apple’s website.
It was “only” $199 (my original iPhone was $599-- yikes).
It arrived on time, on Friday 6-19-2009, thanks to Fed Ex (no charge from Apple).
It is MUCH faster than my original iPhone-- at everything.
The camera can take still photos or video. Video can go straight to YouTube if you’d like.
The camera has an autofocus but you can tap the screen to show what you’d prefer to focus on.
There’s a compass inside so when you look at a map it can orient itself to the direction you’re facing.

All of the things I liked in the original iPhone are here in the 3G S: easy to use, elegant interface, great selection of applications.

The only things I don’t like about the new iPhone have to do with AT&T. First, the phone wouldn’t activate, and that was because AT&T had no idea I had this new phone-- even though I had to pass through AT&T’s website to check my eligibility for the new iPhone’s subsidized pricing on the way to buying it. It took me a day to figure out what was going on, but after a couple tries with AT&T’s hilariously uninformed “customer service” squad (“You can’t activate the iPhone without going to either an Apple store or an AT&T store” (wrong). “You don’t have an iPhone 3G S” (wrong). “The internet is like a big highway, and activation of so many phones at once is like running out of gas on the way to your mother’s on 4th of July weekend” (huh? Actually, I made that one up)).

The second thing I don’t like about the new iPhone 3G S is it costs me $10 more per month to get the same kinds of stuff as my original iPhone: 450 anytime minutes, unlimited data plan, unlimited text messaging. It’s faster at the data stuff so I am not bothered all that much. Still, $100 per month sort of adds up.

Hats off to AT&T customer service guy “Justin” who listened to my story, verified that his company didn’t know about my new iPhone, entered my new phone’s SIM card number and iPhone serial number into their computers, AND made sure that my voice mail worked. All without once hanging up on me. More like that, please. Boo and hiss to every other AT&T comedian, I mean “customer service representative,” who either didn’t know anything about the iPhone, or anything about anything. There were four of those. Double boo and double hiss to AT&T’s automated customer service phone system that makes you enter your phone number, then “touch or say 1 for service,” then “touch or say 7 for iPhone support,” then “touch or say 0 to speak with an operator,” then-- after you get through all that they say “Sorry, we’re closed. Call back during regular business hours.” That’s nice.

Palm Pre-- not for me

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-06-14T16:22:14-07:00

No doubt you’ve been hearing a lot about Palm’s new “Pre” phone, made by a new team at Palm that looks a lot like the old team at Apple. Jon Rubinstein heads the group (and now Palm itself) and he used to be in charge of the iPod division of Apple. (Click the link to read all about Jon Rubinstein’s career-- he’s done a lot.)

David Pogue (New York Times) liked the Pre-- read about it here.

Walter Mossberg (Wall Street Journal) liked the Pre-- read about it here.

Christian Boyce (free agent writer, currently available for assignment) did not like the Pre. Read about it right here.

Palm didn’t send me a Pre to play with, so I had to leave my office-in-the-living-room-- I mean “the West Coast Headquarters of Christian Boyce and Associates”-- and find a Pre on my own. Sprint is currently the only carrier with the Pre so I drove over to my local Sprint store (and then drove some more, because the store doesn’t have any parking). It took me so long to find parking that I almost gave up, but being so intrigued with the Pre’s potential, and feeling a deep sense of responsibility to the four people who were waiting for my review, I made it to the Sprint store, and there it was--- the Pre! Of course, leave it to Sprint to display the Pre in the back of the store, mixed in with a bunch of other shiny black phones so you can hardly notice it. Here’s what it looks like closed (but on), front and back:

Here’s what the Pre looks like with the keyboard slid open. This is part of what I didn’t like, so pay attention. Note that the keyboard doesn’t really slide down-- instead, the phone slides up.

Now let’s have a look from the side. You can see it’s sort of curvy: you slide the phone away from you, and up.

I’m not going to complain about the TINY keyboard. Some people like any keyboard more than the iPhone’s no-keyboard keyboard, even if the keys are small and rubbery and make me feel clumsy. No, the complaint is simpler, and surprising: the keyboard is really hard to slide out. Really hard. Really. (Maybe it’s because you’re trying to make the phone slide forward and UP but all you can do is push it forward and DOWN. The action is sort of a watermelon seed between the fingers thing, but it’s not slippery enough. So it doesn’t feel right.)

It’s funny how things that feel right, feel right, and things that feel wrong, feel wrong. When it’s right, you feel good every time: closing the door to a Mercedes, or putting on cowboy boots that fit. When it’s wrong, you feel bad every time, and it’s a lot easier to come up with examples for “wrong”: turning off a PC (hint: click “Start”), turning ON my Samsung phone (press “End”), telling the gas pump whether you want a receipt or not (press Red for “Yes”, Yellow for “No”-- Green is for “Cancel”). You can add “sliding out the keyboard on the Palm Pre” to the “feels wrong and makes you grimace every time” list.

If Apple made a slide-out keyboard it would move as if by magic. I don’t know how it would work but I know it wouldn’t feel like two pieces of plastic grating on each other (like Palm’s does) and it wouldn’t have sharp edges (like Palm’s does). It looks to me as if Palm could have used Jonathan Ive’s touch on this-- he’s Apple Vice President of Industrial Design, and more than anyone else responsible for the look and feel of Apple’s products, including the MacBook Pro, the iMac, the iPod, and yes, the iPhone. I’ll bet Steve Jobs does his best to keep Jonny from looking for new places to work.

I guess you have to try it for yourself. I’m betting you won’t like it. It doesn’t help that Sprint displays the Pre with a heavy steel cable securing it to a post, making it hard to get a feel for the weight of the Pre in your hand. But what the heck, go have a try at that keyboard yourself-- and let me know what you think when you do.

Safari 4-- free, and great

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-06-10T14:03:30-07:00

Lost in Monday’s excitement about the new iPhone was the news that Safari has been upgraded to version 4. I think it’s terrific, and since it’s free you’ll definitely get your money’s worth. I say “go get it.”

Click here to read all about it.

In a nutshell, Safari 4 loads pages faster than anything and is very nice to use. It will read your old bookmarks, and it will work on your Mac as long as you have 10.4.11 or 10.5.7. (Mom, you’re all set-- download away.) Try the “Top Sites” feature, and try searching your History, and try reviewing your History in the new Cover Flow way.

Watch this space for Safari Super Tips, coming soon.

WWDC Keynote Speech

macman@christianboyce.com — 2009-06-08T19:59:28-07:00

Apple’s Phil Schiller give the keynote speech at the World Wide Developers Conference. Click on the picture to watch the show.

In a nutshell:

Updated MacBook Pro laptops
Updated iPhones (some cheaper, some faster)
iPhone software 3.0 coming this month
Mac OS X 10.6 coming in September-- for $29!

No, they did NOT come out with an iPhone whose camera faces forward, and no, Steve Jobs did not make an appearance. He’s scheduled to come back to work June 30th in case you’re wondering.

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

Here’s a great application from AAA, otherwise known as the American Automobile Association. This little beauty shows where to use your AAA card for discounts-- and it’s free.

Here’s what it looks like when it starts up.

Here’s a list of AAA discounts near me.

Here’s the same information on a map (the green dot is my location, which the iPhone figured out by itself)

Here are the categories.

HERE is something very cool: a built-in “Call for Roadside Assistance” button.

If you enter your membership number into the application you’ll save time when you call.

All in all, considering it’s free, I think you get more than your money’s worth. cboyce says “Check it out.” Click here to download it from the iTunes App Store.

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

After months of hard work the iWork ’09 Missing Manual is now available.
Here’s the cover (enhanced):

Frankly, I think it’s fantastic, and not just because I was involved in it. Josh Clark has written a superb book and you are going to want to read it cover to cover. Click here to read all about it on the publisher’s website (note: they have a “buy two books, get one free” promotion going on if you buy it there-- $39.99). Click here to buy it from Amazon ($26.39 as of this blog entry).

iWork ’09 includes Pages, Keynote, and Numbers, and you can read all about it here. In a nutshell, iWork is Apple’s software for writing letters and reports, laying out brochures and flyers and posters, making presentations, working with figures, and making graphs. If that sounds like Microsoft Office to you, you’re right-- but there’s no comparison. You’ll love using iWork. I already know that you only use Word and Excel because you have to.

Take my advice and download a 30-day demo of iWork ’09 here. Watch the video tutorials (under the Help menu in each iWork component program). And buy the book, even though I’ve already been paid and won’t get any royalties even if you tell them you’re buying it because of me. Wouldn’t hurt to try though.

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

Assuming you’re using Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5):

One of the very handy features introduced in 10.5 is “QuickLook.” With it, you can VERY quickly pop open a document and see what’s in it, without the delay of launching a program such as Preview or Word. Here’s how you use it.

1. Click ONCE on a document icon in the Finder. Here, I’m clicking on what looks to be a picture.

2. Now, with the icon highlighted, press the spacebar. Yes, the spacebar. Don’t ask me why it’s the spacebar. The document pops open, like so:

Any resemblance to Macintosh Consultants living or dead is a miracle, since this picture is from 1991.

You can stretch things from the lower right corner. You can go full screen with the two-headed arrow. You can add this item to iPhoto via the icon at bottom right. Or you can press the spacebar again and make the thing go back to being an icon. (Or click the x in the circle, top left corner.)

You can even double-click on the preview and open it up for real, if that’s what you want to do.

This works with pictures, word processing documents, email messages, you name it. Even Excel documents. Amazing.

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.

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)