Mary’s X Files, February 2010

• Posted: February 7th, 2010 • Author: mary • Category: Columns, Mary's X-Files

Taking photos with the iPhone
~A New Mac Tip Every Day
Have you ever tried to take a self-photo (or a MySpace type of photo) with your iPhone, but couldn’t find the virtual button once the phone is backward? Well, there is a solution to that problem.

Did you know that the iPhone actually takes the picture when you release the button, not when you press on it. So what you do is simply press and hold the button while the screen is facing you. Then you turn the iPhone while still holding the button. Then, you let it go and voilà, you have a photo of yourself.

This can also be useful when you are waiting to get the perfect shot in an action scene. Just keep the button pressed and when you got exactly what you want, just release the button.

Show only exact duplicate tracks in iTunes
~MacOSXHints
In iTunes, a very useful feature is the File » Show Duplicates menu item. As expected by its name, you can use this feature to help weed out duplicates from your iTunes library. However, many people (myself included) have different versions of songs, remixes and such, which will show up as duplicates when using this feature.

The solution is to hold down the option key prior to selecting this menu item. When you do, Show Duplicates changes to Show Exact Duplicates. In this mode, iTunes shows only true duplicates, and not remixes or alternate versions.

Use some very old scanners under Snow Leopard
~MacOSXHints
My Agfa SnapScan 1212u is about 10 years old now, but had been working perfectly through every OS X release. With the Update to Snow Leopard, however, the old app ScanwiseX wouldn’t start anymore. The error I received was “ScanWise couldn’t find ColorSync-Systemprofile.”

To get my scanner working again, first I installed the OpenSource files from TWAIN SANE. First I installed libusb.pkg, then sane-backends.pkg, and finally sane-preference-pane.pkg.

With the freeware Scan Again for the SANE Extension (Scanner Access Now Easy), I could finally use my Agfa SnapScan 1212u again. After launching the app, it bounces a long time, but it will eventually work. There are not many preferences, but enough to do all important scans I need.

Cleaning Caches
~Mac Hints & Tips
Caches are widely used by the Mac Operating System. Essentially, a cache is a place in which the as temporarily and invisibly stores copies of data that it thinks you might need again soon, thus saving time in locating that data next time it’s needed. If the data isn’t needed again, it’s eventually discarded to make room in the cache for more active data.

Remember the key point that data in caches is only a “temporary spare copy” of data stored elsewhere on your hard disk, and so can be discarded with impunity.

Problems can arise if the data stored in a cache becomes corrupted. Every time the system (or an application) calls for that data, the corrupted data is supplied once again. The result is a repeatable problem of some kind that simply won’t go away, even if you restart the Mac. The solution is to “clean” the cache; that is, to discard the cached data, forcing the Mac to read it afresh from its original location on the hard disk.

A number of utility programs include cache-cleaning functions. Some of the best known are Leopard Cache Cleaner, OnyX, and Cocktail. Of these, only OnyX is free, but you can usually do what you need to do using the free “demo” or “trial” periods of the others.

Some such utilities offer various levels of cleaning, or can clean User and System caches independently. Theoretically you should clean as little as necessary to fix the problem you’re dealing with, but in fact I have never encountered the slightest problem after performing a Deep Clean All procedure. Your Mac may take a little longer to start up and some operations may be a little slower until the caches are refilled, but all this will usually clear in a single work session.

So when might you need to use a Cache Cleaning utility?

Perhaps the most common situation is when changes made in System Preferences don’t “stick,” but keep reverting to the original setting. Cache cleaning usually fixes such a problem very quickly.

Where Does That File Live?
~Mac Hints & Tips
If you found the file you were looking for, and want to know where it is on your hard disk, just move your cursor over the result in the Spotlight menu, and in just a second or two, a tiny dialog will pop up showing the path to that file.

How to Set a Default Printer
~Mac Hints & Tips
Over time you may wind up with several printers set up for your Mac. This results in a list of available printers every time you go to print. If the default (the first one selected) isn’t to your liking you can always change it. To do so, bring up System Preferences and go to Print & Fax. Now right-click (you can hold the Control key down if you don’t have a 2-button mouse) on a printer in the list and choose: Set default printer. There you go!

Mary’s X Files, January 2010

• Posted: January 8th, 2010 • Author: mary • Category: Columns, Mary's X-Files

Photo Browser in Mail One possible fix for a Mac that won’t sleep its display
~MacOSXHints
A little while back i started noticing that my MacBook Pro’s display wasn’t going to sleep. My Energy Saver settings were configured to put the display to sleep after 15 minutes, but it wasn’t happening, even after hours of idle time.

After quite a bit of hunting and head scratching, I finally figured out what was going on. I’d been working on the website for my iPhone game (HexaLex), and I’d opened the Convertbot website in a Safari tab as a source of inspiration.

The Convertbot site has an embedded QuickTime movie demonstrating their user interface. It turns out that this QuickTime movie was preventing the display from sleeping, even though it wasn’t in the frontmost tab. Closing that tab solved the problem.

So if your Mac’s display isn’t sleeping, be sure to check your browser tabs for embedded movies!

Photo Browser in Mail
~Terry White, MacGroup.org
If you use iPhoto to store pictures, there’s no reason to launch iPhoto just to email one of the pics you have there. Just bring up the Photo Browser from the Window menu and you’ll have access to your entire library without iPhoto even being open. (thanks Macworld). You can also click the Photo Browser button on the New Message window. Probably more useful that way.

Use 10.5’s Help on Menu Items
~Mac Hints & Tips

One of the areas that received a lot of attention in OS X 10.5 is the Help system. Instead of simply opening a mini-browser for a given program’s help files, clicking “Help” now displays a drop-down menu with a search box and a list of key help topics. You can jump to a topic by selecting it from the menu, as you would with any other menu item. But the real power of the new Help system is in the search box; enter a search word or words, and help will search the program for information that what you’ve typed. But it doesn’t just search the program’s help files; it also searches the program’s menus.

In Safari, for instance, type “hid” and you’ll see the help menu now shows the various Hide options available in Safari’s menus, as well as entries related to hiding from the help file. Now for the nifty bit — you can execute any displayed menu command be clicking it with the mouse.

Alternatively, if you just want some help remembering where that menu command lives, either hover over (but don’t click) it with the mouse, or use the Down Arrow to highlight it. When you do, the Help system will show you the location of that command, along with a can’t-miss-it colorful arrow symbol pointing at that menu item — the arrow even shimmies around a bit to draw your eyes’ attention to the right spot.

Force Safari 4 to re-render a page
~MacOSX Hints
I’ve been having troubles with Safari 4 and rendering issues on my Mac. Pages will load fine, but then any little thing, such as scrolling, can cause display issues, as seen in the image at right (click it for the full-size version).


Instead of reloading the entire page, which can be a slow process depending on connection speed and page complexity, I use Safari 4’s Debug menu (Enable the Debug menu in Safari 4), which has a new Force Repaint command (Shift-Command-R). If the page can be rendered correctly, it will be done instantly, without waiting on a reload.
Use Send Again
~Terry White, MacGroup.org
It never fails. You send an email to a list of people and you forgot to send it to someone that needs it. You don’t have to start over. Just go to your Sent items, find the message and hit Send Again from the Message Menu. The message will come up as if you’ve never sent it and you can then readdress it to the contact or contacts that you want to send it to now.

Address Book Photos
~Terry White, MacGroup.org
I’m a visual guy. It’s much quicker for me to identify a person by face than by name. My brain just works faster with images. So I go out of my way to make sure as many of my Contacts in Address Book have Contact Photos associated with them. This way not only does their picture come up when my iPhone rings, but it also appears to the right of the email that I get from them.
Use Redirect
~Terry White, MacGroup.org
I sometimes get emails that are more appropriate for someone else to handle at work. However, rather than forward the message, I want the message to go to the new person, but when they hit Reply I want the reply to automatically be addressed to the original sender. So I use Redirect instead of Forward.
Use Address Book Groups
~Terry White, MacGroup.org
I have several groups in Address Book. These come in handy to quickly get to a person or business that I want to call or a group of people that I want to email. So I just start typing the name of the group in the BCC field (yes do it there instead of To:) and the group comes up. I know that the email will go to all of those contacts.

Mary’s X Files for December

• Posted: December 5th, 2009 • Author: mary • Category: Mary's X-Files

View an Email Message’s Folder Path in Mail
~MacOSXHints
Locating an email message in your Mail folder hierarchy is now a snap. As of Snow Leopard’s version of Mail, if you open a message in a new window, Command-clicking (or Control-clicking) on the icon in the title bar of the message window will reveal the path to the enclosing folder for the message (just like it does in the Finder).

Select the folder from the drop-down menu, and it will open in a new Mail browser window. This allows you to easily locate the message within the Mail folder hierarchy, which can prove quite handy.

Delete Email in Mail without Showing Next Message
~MacOSXHints
One of the “features” in Apple’s Mail program that has always annoyed me is how it handles messages after doing a delete operation. If you press Delete to throw away the message you’re currently looking at, Mail displays the next message (marking it read in the process). While I like the fact that Mail marks displayed messages as read, I have always found it annoying that it displays a message that I have not specifically selected (and then marks it as read).

There’s a way around this. Instead of pressing Delete, press Option-Delete.

Yes We Can (Right-Click on a Mac)
~Mac Hints & Tips
Many Mac users don’t know that Macs are as right-click savvy as Windows computers. This misunderstanding is partly Apple’s fault. While Macs have been long able to right click, they shipped with a single-button mouse until 2005. Before that, it was necessary to purchase a third-party mouse with two buttons (or use the Control key, described below).

All desktop Macs now ship with Apple’s Mighty Mouse (which is multi-click capable), but by default the Mighty Mouse is configured for single-button clicking. Likewise, the trackpads on the past few generations of Apple notebooks have the ability to right-tap, emulating the right-click of a regular mouse. However, by default this is also not activated.

Here’s how to configure the Mighty Mouse for right-clicking (or “secondary clicking” as Apple calls it):

1. Open System Preferences (by clicking on the Apple icon in the upper left corner of the screen, then choosing “System Preferences”).

2. Click “Keyboard & Mouse” to open its preference pane.

3 Click the “Mouse” tab.

4 Choose which button you want to assign to use for right clicking (again, called “Secondary Click” here). I suggest using the, uh, right key to right click.

Now you can use your Mighty Mouse to access unique contextual menus for each application.

If you have a recent Apple notebook, you can configure the trackpad to recognize a right click:

1. Open System Preferences (by clicking on the Apple icon in the upper left corner of the screen, then choosing “System Preferences”).

2. Click “Keyboard & Mouse” to open its preference pane.

3 Click the “Trackpad” tab.

Snow Leopard Lets You Shuffle Your Screen Saver
~Tips & Tricks comes from TidBITS
Want to show pictures from multiple iPhoto albums along with various other screen savers? A new Shuffle option in the Screen Saver portion of the Desktop & Screen Saver System Preference pane lets you select multiple sources for your screen saver.

Rotate Several Photos at Once
~TUAW – the unofficial Apple Weblog
Have a bunch of pictures to rotate? Highlight the desired pics in Finder and double-click on one to open them all in Preview. Click the first thumbnail to the right, select all with Command-A, and use Command-L (left) or Command-R (right) to rotate all at once. Quit Preview and Save All.