Windows - not the first word you’d expect to see on a Mac blog. The fact of the matter is, if you’re looking for video media, most of it will be on YouTube or Google Video, but you’re probably still going to run across some .wma or .wmv files that aren’t going to play on your Mac without some tweaking because Microsoft no longer produces Windows Media Player for Mac. Thanks to Telestream, you can install their Flip4Mac Quicktime plug-in, and play .wma and .wmv players in Quicktime, or by using Quicktime in Safari.
Windows Media
November 9th, 2007 — Free Friday
iTunes Random Isn’t Random?
November 7th, 2007 — Write-in Wednesday
Q: I like to listen to iTunes on shuffle….but I seem to be hearing a large amount of the same songs over and over, and then many don’t ever get played. I really like Pat Benetar but I’d love to hear some other stuff. What’s going on?
Eeny, meeny, miny, iPod - Holiday Buyer’s Guide
November 5th, 2007 — Miscellaneous Monday
November is here, and with it the holiday shopping season is upon us. Apple has a new line-up of iPods seemingly released exclusivels to be fodder for wish lists, but what are the real differences between the iPods? Which one would make the best gift for the special someone on your gift list? Continue reading →
Think Different: Think Focused
November 2nd, 2007 — Free Friday
Computers are full of shiny things that beg for our attention - new emails popping up, Google searches itching to be executed, chat windows popping up as people sign on and off messaging clients, or simply just colorful icons, backgrounds, desktop images pulling your attention this way and that. This can lead to distractions when trying to focus yourself on the task at hand (or contribute to the Unseemly Raptor column not being finished at midnight).
You could close all of your applications, set your desktop image to a boring color, and work to block out everything sitting in the dock…but there are instances where you might want your applications out of sight but still running, whether it’s because you want to be able to switch focus back and forth without continually opening and closing things, you have data crunching in the background, or you want to have other applications open but less prominent. In this case, you may just want to Think.
Office Files with iWork?
October 31st, 2007 — Write-in Wednesday
Q: I’m thinking about purchasing iWork, but I have all of these old Microsoft Office files, and I sometimes need to share documents with Windows users. Can you edit and view .doc, .xls, and .ppt files with iWork?
Should you upgrade to Leopard?
October 29th, 2007 — Miscellaneous Monday
If you’ve been within 100 yards of an Apple store or media source in the past few days, you’re probably aware that Apple released another Big Bad Operating System to the public. Leopard - OS X 10.5 - came out on Friday. Addicts flocked to stores, or had pre-ordered copies delivered directly to their doorsteps.
Many people have either installed it already, or are in the process of deciding whether to upgrade. If you already have a well-functioning copy of Tiger (10.4) running on your beloved Mac, do you need to upgrade? Today we’ll cover some of the reasons you might want to wait a bit before forking over that $129 for the new software as well as some reasons Leopard might be worth it to upgrade immediately.
Image Editing - Sledgehammer or Toothpick?
October 26th, 2007 — Free Friday
I do a lot of image editing on my Mac, and I’ve spent many happy hours with PhotoShop. However, sometimes using PhotoShop for a little task is like cracking an egg with a sledgehammer - just a bit of overkill.
When I need to do some quick and simple image manipulation, I usually turn instead to the tiny, free editor: ImageWell. It’s lightweight and functional like a widget, but a powerful desktop app. If you ever need to make a small crop here, add a spot of text there, or maybe make an image a circle instead of a square, all without the hoopla of launching a large image package stuffed with features - this is one application you’ll definitely want in your bag of tricks.
Printing to Size
October 24th, 2007 — Write-in Wednesday
Q: I just scanned and edited a picture with a crop for 5 x 7. Now how do I print it as a 5 x 7? I can’t find where to choose photo size. When I hit print I got a full page picture.
Two For One: What about resizing an image for web use? I can crop them to a certain ratio in iPhoto, but the size is still huge online!
Popping In and Out
October 22nd, 2007 — Miscellaneous Monday
If you’ve got more than one user who uses your computer, you may have run into the problem of several people wanting to use it at once. Sometimes one person will be using the computer, and another needs to check on something quickly - check his email, look up a contact’s phone number, grab a file off the hard drive. Or perhaps the first user is doing something with sensitive information that the second user shouldn’t be able to access, meaning that the first guy needs to stand and supervise the second as they do what’s needed in a new browser window or log out so that the sensitive information is protected.
This could all be a big ordeal if the original user has to quit everything, log out, wait for the next user to log in, find their information, log out, log the first user back in so she can pick up where she left off. Luckily, Apple’s given us a way to make this process quick and easy. For some reason, this is another great feature that was talked about a lot when it was first introduced, and then a lot of people forgot about it and newer users have never even heard of it. So, today, let’s look at Fast User Switching.
Screen Shots With Panache
October 19th, 2007 — Free Friday
On Monday, I talked about various ways to take screenshots in OS X. I have to admit, I’ve been holding one back on you. Both Grab and the screenshot keystroke techniques are useful, but they do have their limitations. You need to remember keystrokes, or go find Grab and open it, you have to be willing to use .png images, etc.
My all-time favorite screenshot technique is actually a Dashboard widget called Screenshot Plus.