Unleash Your Mac

Nothing terribly mac-related to see here today (sorry!).  Just wanted to mention that I haven’t forgotten the raptor readers, but I’m beginning to find that coming up with cool information on demand on a tight schedule is, well, difficult.  (Who would have thought?)

So, I’m going to try out a new format for the blog.  Instead of attempting to update thrice weekly like clockwork, I’m going to try out a strategy of blogging when I stumble across a new feature or notice that I’m doing something other people might not know about.  Feel free to continue to email me with questions, and I’ll try to sprinkle in a decent amount of posts that answer questions or showcase software I find.

The best tactic for keeping up with new posts will probably be to read via the RSS feed, or just check in occasionally.  (If you don’t know what an RSS feed is, don’t worry; I’ll write a bit on RSS feeds and Macs pretty soon here!)

Once you start accruing a lot of photos in your iPhoto library or using it as a screensaver, you’ll probably notice that you start seeing photos you’d rather not see all the time.  Maybe you have 20 shots of your cat that are very similar and don’t want your scrolling through iPhoto or screen saver to be inundated by cat photos (as difficult as that may be for my cat to believe!), or maybe you’ve got some photos you’d rather not show off to anyone who happens to walk by while your screen saver is running or you’re scrolling through your iPhoto library.  Luckily, in iPhoto ‘08 there’s a quick way to fix this that doesn’t require deleting or moving any photos.

Continue reading →

Q: How do I quit an application that seems to be unresponsive or frozen? Is there something like Ctrl+Alt+Del for my Mac, or do I have to restart?

Continue reading →

Happy New Year!  I hope everyone had a great <insert holiday of choice> or at least a good few vacation days before barreling headlong into the new year.  At the end of the year, I always find that I wind up left with tons of photos that I love seeing but seldom take the time to page through my iPhoto library or other photo archives to relive all of the special moments.

A couple great ways to catch a bit of nostalgia in your everyday life are buried in the OS X Desktops and Screen Savers.  By opening the System Preferences panel and clicking “Desktop and Screen Saver” you can choose from many built-in or customizable options.

The Desktop tab will allow you to choose from many Apple-selected desktop images, or even choose photos from your Pictures Folder or iPhoto albums!  (If you are using iPhoto ‘08, and have Events set up, you can also select a particular Event)

If you can’t decide which image is your favorite, you can choose a folder or album and use the controls at the bottom of the panel to have the photos cycle through on a schedule you set. This way you can see a new Desktop image every 30 minutes, every time you reboot, etc.

Another fun place to view your photos (or personalize your computer another way) is on the screen saver.  In this System Preferences tab,  you can once again choose from a myriad of Apple-created screensavers from simple changing colors, to sunny beach scenes, to a news RSS feed and even your own photos.

As with the Desktop Image settings, you can choose your Pictures Folder or iPhoto albums and events.  In this mode, you can even choose several different ways for your photos to be displayed (this will vary slightly between versions of OS X.  Leopard has a slideshow, “falling prints” and a mosaic maker while Tiger had some different display options.

I haven’t forgotten about finding new ways to use your Mac, but winter holidays and end-of-year work deadlines have gotten the better of me. The Unseemly Raptor will be on vacation for the rest of the month, but I’ll be back again in January to ring in the new year!

Happy Holidays to all!

The interface to iChat (especially versions before Leopard) can be clunky, and sometimes you want to use chat services other than the few supported by iChat.  Luckily, there are other good alternatives.  One of my favorites has always been Adium.

Continue reading →

Q: Can I save conversations I have in iChat? How?

Continue reading →

iChat is an application that comes packaged with OSX, but unless you’re actively looking for a new chat application, it’s often undiscovered or overlooked. It’s a versatile program that allows you to chat with other people who use several different messaging services, many of them free, and even allows you to video chat if you happen to have an iSight.

Today I’ll just go over the basics of what you need to use iChat, and we’ll explore tips and tricks for web chatting in the future.

Continue reading →

Ok, I’ll admit it: I love mail.  Even if it’s mail that I know is coming, it’s fun to anticipate delivery of packages I’ve ordered, and December is certainly a big season for package deliveries in my family since we’ve all discovered the convenience of on-line shopping.

Whether you just like to watch your package’s route as it winds its way to you, or you need to make sure that the kids don’t grab the mail on days gifts are scheduled to arrive, or you just don’t want to miss an important package delivery while you’re at work, on-line package tracking can be a real benefit.  It gets even easier with Mike Piontek’s Delivery Status Dashboard Widget.

Continue reading →

Q: I have all of my photos already organized the way I like them in folders, but I’d like to start using iPhoto. I’ve heard that iPhoto reorganizes all of your photos, but I really want to leave the organized the way I already understand. Is there some way to make sure iPhoto doesn’t move all of my photos around?

Continue reading →