Send websites and docs to iBooks
~MacOSXHints
With iTunes 9.2 and iOS 4, the iBooks 1.1 app for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch can store and view PDF files, together with EPUB files.
If you want to quickly add a document or a web page to your ‘Books’ collection in iTunes, all you need to do is to create an alias of iTunes and drag it to ~/Library/PDF Services. Now, when you’re browsing the web or viewing documents and you decide that you want to read them later on a portable Apple device just hit Print, click the PDF button on the bottom left corner of the window and choose iTunes. iTunes will launch and receive the PDF. Next, sync your device and you’re ready to go.
[crarko adds: I tested this, and it works as described. This idea will work with any application that can read a PDF, not just iTunes 9.2.]
Safari 5 Undo re-opens the last closed tab
~MacOSXHints
In Safari 4, Undo (Command-Z) simply undid the last action, such as typing, but not more general functions about the browser.
In Safari 5, Undo will reopen the last closed tab, or Undo the closing of the tab.
Two Ways to Delete Lots of iPhone Photos
~TidBITS
Generally speaking, my recommendation is to delete photos from the camera manually after you’re certain they’ve been imported into iPhoto. That’s easy on every digital camera I’ve used, so the peace of mind is worth the small extra step. However, since most photos I take using my iPhone aren’t that impressive, I’ve always let iPhoto delete the photos automatically after import, with no problems.
However, after importing 162 photos and movies from my iPhone today, I accidentally clicked the Keep Photos button in iPhoto, leaving all the already-imported photos on my iPhone. iPhoto would happily hide them from view when importing new photos, but it wouldn’t delete them. Needless to say, I didn’t want to delete 162 photos one at a time by tapping the trash icon followed by the Delete Photo button – I have better things to do than tap my iPhone 324 times (like write this article!).
I figured out two ways around the problem, one using just the iPhone and another using Image Capture on the Mac.
To delete the photos on the iPhone in a batch, tap Photos > Camera Roll to view all the photos, and then tap the Share button. Next, tap each photo in turn to select it, and once you’ve selected all of them, tap the Delete button. This halves the number of taps necessary, but since you must still tap each photo once in the selection step, it’s not ideal.
To delete all the photos in one fell swoop, connect your iPhone to your Mac, launch Image Capture (usually in the Applications folder), select the iPhone in the sidebar if necessary, choose Edit > Select All (Command-A), and then click the button with the little red circle with a slash through it. Image Capture prompts you to make sure you want to delete all the photos; click Delete.
Once again, it’s a little surprising that there’s a capability of the age-old Image Capture program that Apple hasn’t yet built into iPhoto, but there it is.
The Ultimate Customize Toolbar Shortcut~Mac Hints & Tips
In Finder, if you want to customize the items in your toolbar (and there’s nothing wrong with that), just Command/Option/click the little white pill-shaped button at the top right of your window’s title bar, and the Customize Toolbar dialog will appear, right there in your window. Now you can just drag-and-drop icons onto the toolbar.
See Which Groups They Are In
~Mac Hints & Tips
In Address Book, if you have a contact that appears in more than one Group, you can instantly see which of your Groups this individual appears in by simply clicking on his or her contact and holding the “Option” key. When you do this, every Group that they appear within will become highlighted.
This is handy if you want to clean up your Groups by deleting extra instances of people who appear in multiple Groups.
What If You Don’t Want To Open The File?
~Mac Hints & Tips
The idea behind Spotlight is that it will find the file you want, and then open that file for you so you can start working on it immediately.
But what if you just want to know where the file is and not necessarily open it? (For example, what if you just want to know where it is, so you can burn a backup copy to a CD?)
To do that, once the results appear in the spotlight menu, just hold the Command key and then click on the file. This will close Spotlight and open the Finder window where your file is.
Or if you want Spotlight open, just click on the file and press Command/R, which will open a Finder window with the file selected, leaving the spotlight dialog open.