Tips & Tricks

Always use the SHIFT key to wake up a sleeping Mac

Here's a tip for everyone who wants to wake up a sleeping machine; always use the SHIFT key. This way you won't accidentally cause erroneous keyboard input or toggle a waiting dialog box if it turns out the screen was dimmed but the machine was still running. Make it a habit and you'll never cause unexpected behaviour.

Using your PowerBook with the display closed

If you use an external display or projector with any PowerBook G4 or PowerBook (FireWire), you can close the display and still use the computer.
1 Make sure the computer is plugged in to an outlet using the AC power adapter.
2 Close the PowerBook's display. The PowerBook will go to sleep.
3 Connect the external monitor.
4 Turn on the external monitor.
5 Connect an external Apple USB keyboard and mouse. The PowerBook will wake from sleep. If you have an Apple display that also has a USB cable, connecting this cable will also wake up the PowerBook.

To use the internal display again, choose Sleep from the Apple menu, then wake the PowerBook by opening its display.

Connecting an external monitor increases the power requirements of the PowerBook. Therefore, you must use the AC adapter whenever the PowerBook is connected to an external monitor. The PowerBook will not wake up if the power adapter is not connected, and if you disconnect the power adapter the computer will go to sleep.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=88064

Protect Your Laptop with Personalization

It's relatively easy to change the image displayed behind your login window, and doing so might increase the odds of getting your laptop back if you lose it.

To change the login window's backdrop, navigate to the /Library/Desktop Pictures folder and find the Aqua Blue.jpg file, which contains the image displayed behind the login window. Before you do anything else, duplicate this file in case you want it back later.

If you just want to replace the image with one of your own choosing, delete the Aqua Blue.jpg file. Then drop in any other JPEG image file and name it Aqua Blue.jpg. On your next login, you'll see your custom picture. A more interesting use of this screen, though, is to add information that will help a Good Samaritan find you if you lose your laptop. (This trick won't help much if a thief steals it, though.)

Open the Aqua Blue.jpg file in your favourite image editor (or modify the image you intend to use). Add some way of contacting you (See bottom screenshot). Save the modified file as Aqua Blue.jpg in the specified directory and log out. Now your handiwork resides behind the login panel. Make the ownership information as big and obnoxious as you can stand; this increases the odds of someone seeing it. After all, you don't spend much time looking at the login window.
http://www.macworld.com/2005/03/secrets/mayosxhints/index.php

Reduce Search-Results Eyestrain

When you run a search in the Finder, a Search Results box pops up, showing each match. The results box uses space-efficient small icons and a 12-point font. That's dandy for squeezing lots of results into a window, but it's not great for those of us with aging eyes. It's also awfully hard to distinguish icons at that size when you're looking for one Word document in a sea of TextEdit results.

You can't change the Search Results window to icon-view mode. (If you try clicking on the button at the top left of the window, nothing happens.) But you can alter this window by going to View: Show View Options. Pick larger icons here, and you'll get larger, more legible results. You can also use the View Options box to change the font size, as well as to choose which columns appear in the results window. You'll have to change these settings only once.

The real power of the toolbar, however, lies in the fact that you can add your own files and folders to it, and thus have immediate access to those things. Close the customisation window if it's still open, and then open your Applications folder. Click on Safari (for example), drag it to the toolbar area, and hover your cursor there. After a moment, your cursor will become a green plus sign. Release the mouse button, and Safari will appear on the toolbar. You can now launch Safari with one click. You can do the same thing with folders (for one-click navigation and for easily dragging files into a new folder) and documents (open a new file with one click).

To tidy things up a bit, hold down the Command key to rearrange anything on the toolbar. To remove an item, just Command-drag it off the toolbar. (It's OK-you're not deleting the original.)

Rob Griffiths http://www.macworld.com/2005/03/secrets/mayosxhints/index1.php

Using a Windows keyboard on a Mac

Apple touts the Mac mini as being compatible with any USB keyboard, but there's a catch: If your keyboard was designed for use with a Windows computer, it doesn't have the Mac's familiar command (a.k.a., "Apple") or option keys. Instead, it has Alt and Windows keys. Although these keys are in the same block of space on a Windows keyboard as they are on a Mac keyboard, and they're functionally and logically equivalent-Alt key acts as option, Windows key acts as Apple/command-their layout is backwards:

In other words, when you use a Windows keyboard with a Mac, the option and command keys are switched. Tiger's Keyboard & Mouse preference pane now lets you do this without having to install additional software-you can swap the functionality of the Command, Option, Control, and Caps Lock keys via the Modifier Keys dialog.

However in Panther, you need the free software DoubleCommand (http://doublecommand.sourceforge.net/), a Mac OS X kernel extension that lets you swap the functionality of the Alt and Windows keys, thus making any Windows keyboard behave just like a Mac keyboard-useful not only for "switchers," but also for current Mac users who'd like to be able to use any ol' Windows keyboard they might find on sale. (You can even use a PS/2 keyboard with a Mac via an inexpensive PS/2-to-USB adapter.)

This feature alone makes DoubleCommand a must-have for Windows-keyboard-using Mac users, but it does much more. Via the DoubleCommand preference pane, you can remap (change the function/position of) a number of keys on your keyboard.
The options to pick are:
_ Command key acts as option key
_ Option key acts as command key

To eject CDs and DVDs using a Windows keyboard, simply hold down the F12 key for a few seconds; this emulates the eject key on Apple keyboards.

Dan Frakes http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/macgems/2005/01/doublecommand/index.php

A "new tab" button in the Safari toolbar

One of the most popular features of Safari and other modern browsers is tabbed browsing. As a result, one of the most requested Safari features has long been a "new tab" button in the Safari toolbar. Now that Safari 2.0 (included with Tiger) allows you to customize the toolbar like many other Mac OS X applications, many people held out hope that a "new tab" button would be one of the options. Alas, no. But you can get such a button using Safari Buttons, which replaces Safari's Report Bug toolbar option with a New Tab button. (You lose the Report Bug button, but now many people actually used it?) As a bonus, Safari Buttons also lets you enable and disable image-less browsing (which disables images for faster page loading) by pressing Command+Y, then Command+R. Safari Buttons 0.4 (free from http://www.plan8.org/safaributtons.php).

Problems with a FireWire drive?

To clear up many FireWire issues, reset the FireWire ports. Panther has a Finder Preference to show mounted volumes on the Desktop. You must set this for mounted drives to be visible. Please follow these instructions to reset your FireWire port. Here is a summary:

shut down and disconnect all external drives and peripherals ; make sure nothing is connected to the FireWire ports
use Apple Disk Utility to repair permissions on your internal boot drive
shut down and disconnect the AC power from the computer as well as the drives; if laptop, also remove batter
let sit unpowered and unconnected for 15 minute
reconnect AC power to only the computer (battery too if laptop)
restart computer
verify that FireWire ports are visible within Apple System Profile
reconnect FireWire drive (only one); refresh window within Apple System Profiler to rescan the FireWire bus; confirm that drive is visible
confirm drive is OK by using Apple Disk Utility and apply First Aid
repeat for other drives, one at a time

Quickly add titles to iPhoto images

When you're working with Apple's iPhoto 5 (A$ 119.00 as part of iLife), the left- and right-arrow keys are useful keyboard shortcuts for moving from one photo to the next. But if you're working in the Information panel (click on the small i in the lower left corner) to set titles, dates, times, comments, and so on, you'll find that the arrow keys no longer switch photos. Instead, they allow you to move within the text you're modifying. This makes changing information for multiple photos difficult, since you're forced to use the mouse to move between them.

There are, however, two not-so-obvious shortcuts that can save you some mousing time. After you've clicked on one of the Information panel's text fields, just use Command-[ (left square bracket) and Command-] (right square bracket) to move to the previous and next images, respectively. Your cursor stays in the text field you were working in, so it's easy to quickly update information for a large number of photos.

Note that if you're setting the field to exactly the same value for every photo in your selection, it's faster to select Photos: Batch Change. Rob Griffiths http://www.macworld.com/2005/06/secrets/julyosxhints/index.php

Cookie Hint

I had a case where Safari was unable to bring up some financial information on a site I was already logged into. Turns out that in preferences I had selected the option to accept cookies only from sites navigated to. On the option I was trying to exercise, the site was evidently switching to another server and Safari would not accept the new cookie. When I changed the preference to "Accept all cookies" (after a great deal of trial and error) the new page I had been trying to reach appeared. Al M http://www.macintouch.com/safari07.html

Control the volume of the startup sound

With the third party StartupSound.prefPane you can control the volume of the startup sound of your Macintosh computer running OS X 10.2 or later. StartupSound.prefPane mutes the startup sound without changing the output volume setting. And StartupSound.prefPane limits the startup volume so that it will not become louder as you make the output volume louder. To set the startup sound volume, add "Startup Sound" pane to the "System Preferences." Select it and change the volume slider, click the "Mute" checkbox to turn off the startup sound completely. http://www5e.biglobe.ne.jp/%7Earcana/StartupSound/index.en.html

How to Leave Mail on the Server with Mail.app

If you want to change the amount of time mail is left on a POP server. Mail.app allows you to set an arbitrary number of days only if you edit its plist file to do so:

Quit Mail.app
Open ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist in either a text editor or plist editor.
Search for the following in the file:
<key>DeleteMessagesOnServerInterval</key>
<integer>1</integer>
That "1" might be something else. Change it to whatever number of days you want and save your changes.
Relaunch Mail.app.

Screen Capture

Q. Up to the release of Tiger, screen captures were saved as .PDF files. Since Tiger, this seems to have changed, at least on my machines. They are now saved as .png files. Although this is fine for my own use, attaching to emails causes problems for recipients. I know I can easily change the file to .PDF, but try as I might, I can't find out how to change the default format back to .PDF. And why would Apple change this anyway? .PDF files seem much more universally accepted. John Alcock

A. There are several screenshot "helper" utilities that work with the built-in screenshot function and add the ability to save in different formats. 9PIX Screen Capture Converter , for example, "is an AppleScript that uses Folder Actions to intercept a screenshot PDF as it is saved to the Desktop and gives you the option of saving it in one of the eight alternative formats." http://www.sefazfavor.com/9pix/

There are complete screenshot replacement utilities that you use instead of the built-in function, like Ambrosia's Snapz Pro. These usually add lots of extra functions over and above format conversion. Some of the utilities are free, some not.

We don't have a particular favourite. The Big Kahuna of screenshot utils is probably Snapz Pro, which runs US $29 (US $69 if you want to take movies as well) and does more than most people will ever need. http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/snapzprox/ http://www.macintouch.com

Footnote
To change the file format of the screen capture feature in OS X 10.4, use the following command line command:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type pdf

You need to log out and back in for the change to take effect. And you can set the file format to psd (Photoshop), so you should be able to set the file format to any QuickTime-compatible format.

Exporting slideshows from iPhoto5

The Ken Burns effect adds multiple images of each picture, so exporting slideshows with that effect selected creates files 10 times larger than without it.

However there is still a very big difference between exporting from an album and from a slideshow. The iPhoto4 style of export is still available in iPhoto5 (with the possible exception of adding music, which doesn't seem to work), where an album is exported as a .mov file, with the dimension options being completely editable in the Export Photos window, the default being 640x480.

Using the same images in iPhoto5, exporting from an album to a 640x480 or 720x480 .mov file with no music creates a 3.2Mb file. But exporting from a slideshow (created from the above album) to a 720x480 .mov file with no music makes a 27.7Mb file! David Luckhardt

Tiger-incompatible version of TechTool

AppleCare, has been distributing CDs with a Tiger-incompatible version of TechTool which corrupts Tiger OS X 10.4 making the drive totally inoperable. Apple is aware of this. It is an issue in their discussion forums. The help at Apple Care recommends never using Techtool Deluxe.

How to Update TechTool Deluxe
Micromat periodically updates TechTool Deluxe to correct issues, introduce program enhancements, or keep current with changes to the Mac OS and Apple hardware. You should take advantage of these enhancements by using the latest version of TechTool Deluxe. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106635

Mac OS X: Compatible TechTool Deluxe Versions
You receive TechTool Deluxe if you purchase the AppleCare Protection Plan. TechTool Deluxe versions 2.5.3 and later work with Mac OS Extended (HFS Plus) format volumes on which Mac OS X is installed. TechTool Deluxe is not compatible with volumes formatted in the UNIX File System (UFS).
If you are using TechTool Deluxe version 3.0 or later, you must start up the computer using Mac OS X. If you are using TechTool Deluxe version 2.5.3 through 2.5.7, you must start up the computer using Mac OS 9 to get accurate results.
Important: TechTool Deluxe versions 2.5.3 through 2.5.7 may indicate issues that do not actually exist when the computer is started up from Mac OS X, when you use them in Classic mode. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106635


Items you can add to a window's toolbar

The delete button added to the toolbar

Windows keyboard:
control	Windows	Alt	SPACEBAR	Alt	Windows	control
Mac keyboard:
control	opt	command	SPACEBAR	command	opt	control


Before - small icons	After - large icons