Bobbie’s Comments...

I have not tried out all of the tips and hints that I have for this months newsletter. If you want to check them out I found them at www.mac-hints-tips.com

If you should try out the Tips and Hints would you please report your findings on them at the next meeting.

If you do learn something in the newsletter that interested you it would be interesting to hear about it at the meetings.

Copy & Paste Quickly
There is not one but two quick ways to copy & paste text quickly. You can highlight the text you want and then press Command/C to copy. Place the cursor where you want to drop the text and press Command/V to paste. Or you can highlight the text and just drag it where you want it. Depending on your background, I’ll bet you thought one of these two ways was something everyone already knew.

Control/Click Secret
Did you know that you can Control/ click on words in most OS X applications to bring up a contextual menu that includes access to the built-in spelling checker? You can check the spelling of words, find the correct spelling of and replace misspelled words, and turn the check-as-you-type feature on or off .

Give Your Mac Some Breathing Room.
The electronic innards of your Mac produce heat as a natural byproduct of operation. While most Macs contain ventilation fans, you can defeat their function if you crowd your Mac’s desk space. An over-heated computer can cause system errors and reduce the life of your computer. To avoid fried silicon, avoid putting items directly against your computer.

Give Apple Your Two Cents' Worth!
If you want to send feedback to Apple regarding their hardware or software, about features you would like to see, glitches, features that should work better, or general suggestions and comments, go to http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

Use iChat for Sending Files
If your correspondent’s email client does not allow more than a 5 meg download, use iChat instead. You can send larger files using iChat. The other person has to be signed on to iChat. A green button next to his name in Address Book shows if he is online in iChat.

Pushing Print
Q: How do I create a Print button in Safari's Address Bar?

A: A simple Java Script will do the job. Just type “javascript:window. print()” in the Address field and drag the globe next to the field into the Bookmarks Bar. Enter a name for the script (Print, for instance) and click on “OK.” When you click on the new button, the Print sheet will appear. You can use the same method to open a new browser window type “javascript:window. open()”.

iPhoto
You can add or select keywords to help classify your photos. Keywords are labels you can add to your photos, allowing you to easily view images by category. To add a keyword to a photo or selection of photos, just drag them onto any keyword in the Keywords pane at the bottom left of the iPhoto window. (To view the Keywords pane, click the Keyword button— it looks like a key.) To remove all keywords from a photo, drag it onto the Reset button in the Keywords pane. To view photos by keyword, click any keyword button in the Keywords pane.

To add a Keyword
Select Preferences from the iPhoto menu and then go to the Keywords pane. You can also select keywords for a photo in the Get Info box by selecting the photo and hitting Command/I.

Rotate This
You can click the rotate button or select "Rotate Clockwise" or "Rotate Counter Clockwise" from the Photos menu. You can also switch between clockwise and counterclockwise directions by holding down the Option key.

More Keyboard Commands
Command/Shift/N: This command set will create a new photo album from your selection of photos.

Option/Double-click:
This reverses the set preference for double-click action. You can set double-click action in the Preferences, general panel. One option is to open the photo in its own window while the other is to open the photo in the edit window. Using the option key with a double click will do the opposite of what you have selected in the preferences.

Command/click:
This allows you to select non-adjacent photos. If you want to make a photo album of all the photos of your dog over the years. You can select the first photo and then by holding down the Command key and clicking on other, non-adjacent photos you can select other dog pictures. Do it in batches, because it can be pretty frustrating to have selected a bunch of photos and then accidentally forget to hold the Command key down and thereby lose your selections. Pick all the photos on a page that you want, move them to the album, and then scroll down to do the next page. If you accidentally pick a photo of your cat instead, clicking on it again with the Command key will de-select it.

Assigning Ratings:
One way to make slide shows or albums is to rate your photos. iPhoto allows you to use a five-star rating system. It takes a few clicks to do this normally, but there is a keyboard command for this, too. Command/0 through Command/5 will assign that number of stars to the selected photo. You can also rate photos while viewing them in a slide show by pressing 0-5 while that slide is presented. More iPhoto Keyboard commands can be found at:
http://www.apple.com/support/ iphoto/shortcuts/

Organizing your Photos
One of the handiest features of iPhoto is the ability to sort your photos into albums, make smart albums, make photo books, and save them. I seldom delete a photo, so I end up with lots of albums and photos. iPhoto now allows you to create folders, as in OS X Mail, to store your albums, photo books, or other folders. Select New Folder from the Edit Menu and drag away. You cannot add individual photos to a folder, only to an album or book.

Getting Photo Information
Selecting a photo and then hitting Command/I will give you an information window that will tell you a lot about the photo, including the date it was taken, what camera was used, the size of the photo, the shutter speed, aperture, and other camera setting information. It will also let you select keywords from that information window.

Mac Joke for the month

Your graphics accelerator card is connected to the treadmill in your hamsters cage.
The smoke and fumes from your CPU are beginning to affect your health.
The only sound you get from your sound card is "cough, cough.. .wheeze"
The magnifying glass in front of your tiny monitor is starting to melt the plastic casing.
You attempt to connect to a site with graphics and your modem displays a pop-up window saying "You're kidding, right?"
You find yourself drilling holes in your floor or desktop to hold your computer in place while it's running.
Your idea of multimedia is turning on the stereo in the next room.
Your email comes back with postage due.
You have to "crank start" it like an old model "T"