Saginaw Macintosh Users Group

Copy the Lion Installer
~MacWorld
The good news is that, once you’ve got a Lion installer, you can copy it freely to all the Macs in your house (so long as they’re running the latest version of Snow Leopard) and upgrade them to Lion. Not only is that convenient, but it’s legal: The Lion download license covers all of the Macs in your household, making that $30 an even greater deal. If you’re planning on updating multiple Macs to Lion, though, be warned: the Lion installation app self-destructs after use. After you download it, move a copy somewhere else before installing, or you’ll have to re-download the installer from the App Store before using it on another Mac.

10.6: Option-click audio mvenu extra to choose source
~MacOSXHints.com
If you want an easy way to change the input or output sound source on your mac (say between the internal microphone and audio-in) in Mac OSX Snow Leopard you can simply option-click on the audio menu-extra in your menu bar.

Last call for AppleWorks users
~MacWorld
In recent Mac 911 entries I’ve looked forward to what will and won’t work with Lion (and swore I’d stop doing it). So now, a brief look back. And yes, I mean you die-hard AppleWorks users. If you want to use a Mac running Lion, your time has run out. AppleWorks won’t work. So, what to do with those AppleWorks documents?

Regrettably there’s no path nearly so easy for your AppleWorks database files. FileMaker has a tutorial that tells you how to move these files to Bento, but it’s inelegant. Essentially you save your file as ASCII text and add a .tsv extension to it. Then within Bento you choose File -> Import -> File, click Choose in the resulting Import window, and then select your .tsv file. You’ll lose your AppleWorks templates, but your data will move over.

AppleWorks painting files can be converted to a variety of graphics formats including jpeg, .png, and TIFF. Regrettably this is something you have to do via a Save As command. You can’t simply change the file’s extension.

And AppleWorks drawing files can be opened and edited with the $95 EazyDraw. It’s not an inexpensive option, but it’s one that doesn’t require that you futz about with converting files.

Although this should go without saying, if you’re still using AppleWorks today to generate files and wish to stay current with Apple technology, it’s time to set AppleWorks aside and start using up-to-date tools. Continue using it and you’re only generating more work for your future self.

10.7: Slideshow screensaver can be paused
~MacOSXHints.com
Unlike the previous built-in slideshow screensavers, Lion’s slideshow screensaver is pausable by hitting the spacebar. In previous system versions, hitting any key would stop the screensaver. This is handy when people ask ‘where is that,’ etc.

Preview the print queue with Quick Look
~MacWorld
When you print documents with your Mac, they show up in your printer’s queue. You can view that queue by clicking the printer icon in your Dock. Sometimes, though, it’s difficult to tell exactly which documents are which in that queue—especially if you’re printing a bunch of untitled or similarly-named files. Hints reader ppinheiro76 figured out a delightfully simple way to get quick previews of the files you’re printing.

Once you’re in the print queue, just double-click on an individual print job to open a Quick Look preview of the document being printed; since it’s Quick Look, you could instead tap the spacebar to trigger the same effect.

This reminds me that Quick Look pops up in some unexpected places, and it’s often a delightful surprise. For example, I frequently use it in Open and Save dialogs to preview files there. And don’t forget that the print queue has some other hidden functionality, too: Remember the one about dragging documents directly into the queue to print them?

10.7: Shrink page width in full-screen Safari  tab
~MacOSXHints.com
Full-screen Safari is nice, but some pages don’t do well with the Reader option, and are hard to read on an extremely wide-screen monitor.

If you move the mouse cursor all the way left (or right), the pointer changes to a horizontal-resize indicator. At this point, you can click and drag toward the center, to change the width of the page while the browser stays in full-screen mode. A gray linen background appears on the left and right of the resulting narrower page.

Each tab can be adjusted independently.

[crarko adds: I tested this, and it works as described. I tried this in Preview and it seemed to resize the page automatically when switched to full-screen mode.]

The comma key’s hidden powers on iPad
~MacWorld
Whether you’re a touch-screen typing savant or a two finger tapper, there’s no denying that iPad typing isn’t as convenient as using a real keyboard—especially when you want to access frequently-used punctuation that isn’t even available on the virtual keyboard’s main screen. A little-known trick can help: swiping up quickly on the Comma key will instantly insert an apostrophe; swiping up on the Period key inserts a quotation mark. That’s one quick swipe, instead of a tap on the .?123 punctuation key, and then a second tap on the specific punctuation mark you’re after.

Get Account Info in Mail in Preview
~MacOSXHints.com
In Mail.app, press Command+I on the Inbox icon (or right-click on it and choose ‘Get Account Info’) and sample the awesomeness. Actually, this works with any of the main mailbox icons. Just select an account from the popup menu.

It gives space usage for each folder and quota limits for the account, plus other settings from the ‘Account Info’ preference, and works for Gmail and Exchange too. I just stumbled onto it and found it worth sharing.

Retrieve S/Ns of iPods connected to your computer
~MacOSXHints.com
If your iPod is lost or stolen you’ll want to find its serial number. Luckily, your Mac keeps a record of all the iPods that have connected to the computer with the s/n and other info.

The file that stores info about iPods is located at /Library/Preferences/com.apple.iPod.plist. Open it with your favorite text editor.

Here’s the hierarchy of the XML file with (descriptions):
<dict> (everything/root)  <key>Devices</key> (the section that stores info about the iPods themselves)  <dict>   <key>XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX</key> (a unique identifier for each iPod, not useful to us us <dict> <key>Connected</key> (the first iPod) (In here is the info about the iPod. Subsequently, I will refer to things at this level of the tree.)
</dict>   </dict>  (ignore stuff in here; it’s not useful to us)
<dict>Line 2 of the section I said we’d focus on is a date. This is the last time you connected the iPod.Line 4 tells us that the device is an iPod, which we already knew. Line 6 tells us what ‘family’ the iPod is. My Nano G5 is a 16. Line 8 is the firmware version in a single number (not the version that we usually see). Line 10 is the firmware version as a the number we’re used to (X.X.X). Lines 12 and 14 are about games on the iPod, and not very useful to us. Line 16 is that unique ID we saw earlier.Line 18 is the language (language-country). Line 20 is the big one: the serial number. Lines 22 and 24 are info for the software update application, and not very useful to us. Line 26 is the number of times you’ve connected that iPod. If you’ve connected more than one iPod, you’ll see another of the blocks that starts with <key>XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX</key>.

How to re-sort photos on your iPhone
~MacOSXHints.com
An anonymous Hints reader was flummoxed: He (or she) used iTunes to sync pictures from iPhoto to his (or her) iPhone. But when he looked at the pictures on his phone, iPhoto Events didn’t appear in the order he wanted. As far as he could tell, neither iTunes nor the iPhone offered any option to change the phone’s photo-sorting behavior.

As the anonymous reader discovered, however, there is a solution—one that’s less obvious than it might appear at first. The iPhone will honor whichever sorting option you select within iPhoto. To change the sorting order there, launch iPhoto, select Events, and then choose View -> Sort Events. You can then sort Events by date (in chronological or reverse-chronological order), alphabetically by name, or in a manual order of your own creation.

But, wait, there’s more: If you switched to iTunes now, your photos still wouldn’t be in the order you wanted; they’d be out of order on your phone, too. You must first quit and relaunch iPhoto. Once you’ve done so, iTunes will notice the new sort order you’ve set for your Events. When you sync your iPhone this time, events will appear the way you want them to.

Open Google search in new tab behind current
~MacOSXHints.com
In Safari, we all know if you highlight some text and then Control+click (or right mouse click) you get a pop up contextual menu. I use this to search text in Google all the time, but didn’t like that it would open in front while I was still reading the web page. So with a little experimenting, if you hold down the Command key before you click on ‘Search with Google’ in the pop up menu, the page will open in a tab behind your current one.

Launching apps quickly on iPad
~MacWorld
I have too many apps on my iPad. While I can always find certain apps quickly—I remember which home screen they’re on, and where geographically the icons are located on that screen—there are many more apps that I just can’t find. Instead of paging through home screen after home screen, I use Spotlight as a virtual keyboard launcher.

Tap the Home button to get to your first home screen, and then either tap it again or swipe to reveal Spotlight. Start typing the first few letters of the app’s name, and then tap on the right result to launch it instantly. Spotlight automatically surfaces your most frequently used apps at the top of its matching results, which is often very useful.

Quickly open two instances of the same PDF
~MacOSXHints.com
Sometimes you need to have two views of the same PDF document (e.g. to have a quick access to the list of references in a thesis without the need to scroll to it and then back to the text). However, Preview does not allow a file to be opened twice.

The quickest solution would be to hit Cmd-P and select ‘Open PDF in Preview.’ You’ll have a temporary copy of your PDF where you can select the second view and have both views handy for easy switching.

When you’re done, just hit Cancel in the temporary document.

Fix an iPhoto ‘11 slowdown
~MacOSXHints.com
As I’ve been adding photos to iPhoto ‘11 (9.1.3), it’s been getting slower and slower. On Friday, it ground just about to a complete halt, such that even force quitting took about 20 minutes to accomplish.

According to Activity Monitor, there was no CPU activity and no network activity to speak of, which stumped me because I was assuming it was Faces or Spotlight laboring mightily away in the background.

After many trials and errors, I determined that the problem was due to my entries in the Accounts preference. I had MobileMe (times two), Facebook, Flickr, and six other e-mail accounts registered there. About a minute after each launch, iPhoto had been attempting unsuccessfully to connect with at least one of the accounts, which brought iPhoto, Finder, and any other open programs to a screeching halt.

As luck would have it, I was one of the lucky ones hit with MobileMe’s latest outage, but after I deleted all the Accounts preference entries, iPhoto sprang back to life.

I subsequently determined that it is normal behavior for iPhoto to attempt indefinitely to connect to services listed in the Accounts preference, with no time-out or notification to the user about what is going on.

If you find yourself in this predicament — iPhoto open but utterly unresponsive — you may be able to shorten the time it takes your Mac to return control to you by severing all network connections (Ethernet, Airport, etc.), at which point iPhoto is supposed to detect the lack thereof and stop trying to connect.

Tapping and holding virtual keys on iPad
~MacWorld
Virtual keys hold special powers. Press and hold on a vowel, for example, and a popover containing accented versions of the selected character appears. (Certain consonants, like C, S, and N, also offer alternate versions when you tap and hold on their virtual keys.)

Press and hold a vowel key—the ‘i’ in this case—and the iPad will summon a popover with accented versions of the character in question.

Similarly, holding down punctuation marks can provide extra options. the standalone Period key—the one on the punctuation keyboard, not the main keyboard—hides an ellipsis. The hyphen offers an em-dash and bullet. And the dollar sign hides symbols for numerous currencies.

Auto-correction is your friend on iPad
~MacWorld
One last keyboard-related tip: especially when you’re using the on-screen keyboard, the easiest way to becoming a virtual typing pro is simply to trust the auto-correction algorithm. The slower your iPad typing speed, the more likely it is that you make frequent use of the backspace key. Or to put it another way: slow iPad typists only allow themselves to type precisely the right keys, and delete each individual mistake.

Not power users! Power users trust that iOS will fix their typos for them. When I type “Dippieedl,” my iPad recognizes that I’m after “Supposedly.” After just “Wkeph,” the iPad knows I want “Elephant.” Fix fewer typos, and your iPad typing will ironically improve.

Undelete from Trash to Original Locations
~MacOSXHints
If you’ve ever trashed some items and then wanted them returned to their original folders, Apple has a counterintuitive way to do so. It is rather odd, but neat!

To return the items from the Trash to their original locations, open the Trash folder, select the item or items to be returned and hit the delete button (red circle with line through it on the folders toolbar).

Your items will disappear from the Trash and reappear in their original folders. If you don’t have the delete button, you can add it to all folders using the Customize Toolbar command under View.

Removing Widgets from the Dashboard
~MacOSXHints.com
The documented way to remove widgets from the dashboard is to press the + button at the bottom left of the screen and then click on the X button of the widget to be deleted. However, there seems to be another way.
Go to the dashboard, put the cursor over the widget and then press the Option key. An X button will appear on that widget. This works in Mac OS X 10.6.7 but I suspect it also works in previous versions.

Reveal the Password in a Password Field on a Web Page
~MacOSXHints.com
If you’re ever in the situation where you have forgotten the password for some web site, but it is right there in the password field of the login form — only in the form of asterisks or bullets — and you would like to copy it from the password field, if only it were not asterisks…well, you can.

You can convert the password field to a plain text field, which will reveal the password behind the asterisks. To do so, you will need to use your browser’s web inspector. The following is the procedure for Safari; the steps are similar in Google Chrome.

Right-click the password field and select ‘Inspect Element’ in the context menu. This will open the web inspector and highlight the HTML tag for the password field.
The highlighted line should contain something like this:

<input type=”password” name=”something”>
(Don’t worry if it doesn’t look exactly like that. As long as the HTML tag contains the type=”password” part, you can proceed.)

Double-click the word “password” following “type=”. This will let you edit the text.
Replace the word “password” with the word “text”, and press Enter. Now the tag should like this:
<input type=”text” name=”something”>

You should now be able to see the password in the password field. You can close the web inspector if you wish.
If this seems like a lot of work, an altenative is to install and use a browser extension that will reveal passwords when you do something like move the mouse over them or click inside them. For Safari, one such extension is ShowPass; similar extensions exist for Firefox and Google Chrome.

Avoiding Application Exits on iPad
~MacWorld
Sometimes, you notice something you’d like to check out more closely in an app—at the same instant you press the Home button. Instead of letting the app close, then finding its icon and waiting while the app relaunches, you can tell your iPad to abort your now-unwanted Home button press. Doing so is hilariously simple: don’t let go. If you hold down the Home button extra long—just a few seconds needed—your iPad will abandon its plans to close the current app, and you tap on that enticing link instead.

Track Down Music Playback Controls on iPad
~MacWorld
With the introduction of that multitasking bar, Apple made it a smidgen trickier to find music playback controls. When you double-tap the Home button, swipe the whole shebang towards the right. Doing so will reveal several controls: playback buttons (Reverse, Play/Pause, and Skip, along with sliders for brightness and volume.

Stash More Apps in the Dock on iPad
~MacWorld
Brand new iPads feature just four apps in the Dock. Because of that, many iPad owners keep just four apps in their docks. But it turns out that the dock actually holds six apps, if you’d like it to. All you need to do to keep more frequently-accessed apps in your dock is move them there: press and hold on any app icon until the apps start to jiggle, and then drag the app you’d like to move right into the Dock. You can stash even more apps by dragging a folder full to the Dock.

Go To URL Faster on iPad
~MacOSXHints
The process of loading a URL in a new tab on iPad can be rather cumbersome and slow. First, one launches Safari from the home screen, waits for the app to open and the old webpage to re-render, then one hits the tab switch button, presses the new tab space, waits for that tab to open, waits for it to switch to the search panel (this is the most irritating part of the process, since it seems to take even longer when what one really wants is the URL bar), and finally, one clicks on the URL bar to enter in a new URL.

To simplify this process considerably, just add a new icon to your Springboard that goes directly to about:blank.
To add the new icon to your home screen, first open a new page in Safari according to the usual method, and direct it to the url, about:blank. Then tap the more options icon (iOS 4.2) or the + icon (iOS 3.2) and select, ‘Add to home’. Give your icon a name like ‘Safari’ or whatever you like then tap add.

In the future when you want to switch to Safari and open a URL in a new tab, just tap the new ‘Safari’ icon you created, then tap the URL and X out the existing about:blank before entering in your own URL. Actually, you don’t even have to X out the existing “about:blank” in the location field. Just click in there and start typing.

How to restore a hard drive using Time Machine
~MacWorld
When Apple introduced Time Machine with OS X 10.5 Leopard, it became easier than ever to prepare for a data disaster—the only serious effort Mac owners running Leopard or Snow Leopard need to make is to plug in a hard drive. While we hope your hard drive never goes south, if it does actually fail, you’ll thank Time Machine for backing up your data. Time Machine backs up your system settings, documents, and applications, making it easy to not only recover from a failed hard disk, but also to migrate these files to a new computer, or to a hard drive that’s faster or has more capacity. Here’s how to restore your data from Time Machine.

Step one: Prepare your driveUnlike some utilities that simply make a bootable clone of your hard drive, Time Machine saves your files, applications, and system settings in a format that can be used to restore this data to a formatted hard drive with OS X already installed.

If you have a new hard drive, or had to erase and repair your old drive, you first need to install Mac OS X 10.5 or 10.6 on the drive, using the discs that came with your computer or a retail version of Mac OS X that supports different types of Macs. When the OS installation is done, the system restarts and you’re treated to a little tune.

If instead, you’ve purchased a new Mac and want to transfer your data from an old Mac to the new one, it’s a piece of cake. Since the new Mac has a fresh installation of Mac OS X, simply start up the system and the music will start playing.

Step two: Select Time Machine restoreWhen you’ve booted off your new installation of Mac OS X (whether on the new computer, new hard drive, or an erased and repaired old hard drive), you’ll be guided through the steps to set up your Mac. You’ll see a screen titled,” Do You Already Own A Mac?” asking if you’d like to transfer your information.
Choose the third option, From a Time Machine Backup. Click Continue.

Step three: Specify a Time Machine backupConnect the hard drive containing your Time Machine backup via USB or FireWire. The Time Machine backup will show up in a list called Select a Backup Volume. You can also find and restore from a Time Machine backup on your local AirPort network. Select your backup and click Continue.

Step four: Select the information you want to transferThis screen asks you to choose what data you’d like to restore. It calculates the size of your User folders, Applications, Documents and other files, which can take quite a bit of time, depending on how much data you have. All of the choices are selected by default. Uncheck the boxes of any file types you’d rather not bring over. Click Transfer when you are ready.

Step five: WaitThat’s it. Your files will transfer over and when finished, your computer will restart. If you chose to copy over all file types, your desktop picture, dock settings and everything else will appear just as they did on your old hard drive.

10.6: Using the Purchases Tab in Mac App Store
~MacOSXHints.com
While looking through the App Store, I stumbled upon something useful about the Purchases tab. If you use the same Apple ID across two or more computers, you may logically want apps purchased with the same Apple IDs installed on those computers as well. You can do this.

Select the Purchases tab in the App Store. You have a complete list of every app you have purchased using the current account. If there are apps you’ve downloaded on one computer that you’d like on another computer, simply click Install and it will download on that computer.

Simple, yes, but it took me a while to discover this. It comes in handy often.