Mac Tip Podcast – #014 – Adding screensavers to your Mac

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:00 — 5.6MB)

In this episode of Mac Tip Podcast;
Adding screensavers to your Mac

Sponsors:
Try GotoMeeting free for 30 days! For this special offer, visit www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts

And by Hostgator with 99.9% uptime, 45 Day Money Back Guarantee and plans as low as $4.95. Visit Mactippodcast.com/hostgator for more Info

Show Notes

Back in the old windows days I remember downloading a bunch of screensavers a weekly basis but now I’m older I don’t really download that many screen savers and haven’t had to download any screensavers since and move to the Mac, but was fiddling I wanted to actually wanted to download some screensavers.

Apple provides a number of screen savers with the Mac OS, but you can never have too many As the same with Windows PCs. There are screen savers available  for almost everybody’s tastes

Adding a third-party screen saver to your Mac is a simple process. You can add it manually, or if the screen saver has a built-in installer, as many do, you can let it perform the installation for you.

Screen savers are stored in one of two locations on your Mac.

/Library/Screen Savers/. Screen savers stored here can be used by any user account on your Mac.
~/Library/Screen Savers/. Screen savers stored here can only be used by that user account. The tilde (~) character at the front of the path name represents your personal home directory. For example, if your home directory is named ‘Ben,’ the pathname would be /Users/Ben/Library/Screen Savers/.
Most Mac screen savers are smart little buggers; they know how to install themselves.

1. Close System Preferences, if you already have it open.
2. Double-click the screen saver you wish to install.
3. The Installer will start.
4. Most installers will ask if you wish to install the screen saver for all users or just yourself. Make your selection to complete the installation.
5. You can copy screen savers you download from the Internet to one of the above two locations. Note: Never move a folder or file that doesn’t end with .saver to a Screen Savers folder.

and that should do it The installation is complete, no matter which way you chose to perform the installation. You can now select and configure the options your new screen saver offers, if any,  by going to the System Preference Pane — Desktop and Screensavers

Download Episode: Click here

Mac tip Podcast – #013 – Remove Finder from your Dock

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:30 — 5.1MB)

In this episode of Mac Tip Podcast;
Remove Finder from your Dock

Sponsors:
Try GotoMeeting free for 30 days! For this special offer, visit www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts

And by Hostgator with 99.9% uptime, 45 Day Money Back Guarantee and plans as low as $4.95. Visit Mactippodcast.com/hostgator for more Info

Show Notes
I love Path Finder and, but like many other Path Finder users, quickly grew annoyed by the useless Finder and Trash icons in the Dock. So, through some digging, I found out how to kill them once and for all.

Navigate to /System » Library » CoreServices, Control-click or right click on Dock.app then select Show Package Contents from the contextual menu. In the new window that opens, navigate into Resources and open DockMenus.plist in your editor.

Find the entries for finder-quit and trash. In each, change one of the commands so that the command entry is 1004 and the name entry is REMOVE_FROM_DOCK. Save your changes and restart the Dock from the Terminal “killall Dock”, and you can then choose Remove From Dock for those two items.

Download Episode: Click here

Mac tip Podcast – #012 – Creating an iCal Event from Apple Mail

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:16 — 4.0MB)

In this episode of Mac Tip Podcast;
Creating an iCal Event from Apple Mail

Sponsors:
Try GotoMeeting free for 30 days! For this special offer, visit www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts

And by Hostgator with 99.9% uptime, 45 Day Money Back Guarantee and plans as low as $4.95. Visit Mactippodcast.com/hostgator for more Info

Show Notes

Leopard is smart bugger as we all know, its even smart enough to recognize dates in the body of an email within Apple Mail.
If the email contains a date, hover over it with the mouse. Once you do, the date will get a dashed line around it, and a pull-down arrow will appear to the right of the date. Click on the arrow and you’ll get a pull-down menu with two iCal options: “Create New iCal Event” and “Show This Date in iCal.”
Choosing “Create New iCal Event” generates a dialog box. Its default name is the subject line of the original email, though you can change it here. You can also supply the location and duration of the event and add additional notes. When you’re finished, choose “Add to iCal.” and Leopard adds the date to your calendar — without even opening iCal.
Not sure if you’re available for that date? Choose “Show This Date in iCal.” This opens iCal at the date in question, but doesn’t add the event to your schedule.

Download Episode: Click here

Mac Tip Podcast – #11 – Expose and your mouse

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (4.5MB)

In this episode of Mac Tip Podcast;
Expose and your mouse

Sponsors:
Try GotoMeeting free for 30 days! For this special offer, visit www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts

And by Hostgator with 99.9% uptime, 45 Day Money Back Guarantee and plans as low as $4.95. Visit Mactippodcast.com/hostgator for more Info

Show Notes
Continuing on from the last episode about Application Switching is expose options and your mouse, Expose is one great tool but there is one thing missing I HATE about it using the keyboard to to in able the great features that expose has to offers.
I own a Logitech lx6 Cordless Optical Mouse that has the traditional mouse buttons But also has the left and right scroll buttons.
Expose has a great feature that allows you to program mouse buttons to enable the expose features.
I use the and left scroll to enable expose for all windows and the right side scroll to hide windows I choose not to enable in single application because i don’t use that feature at all
here is how you enable this feature on your mouse
Go ahead and Open your System Preferences and double click on “expose and spaces”
Now Click on the expose tab
in the expose section you will be able to assign the mouse keys you need for enabling the features
I used button 7 (left) and 8 (right)
For a bonus tip you can also enable a mouse button for dashboard
Now I’m even more productive with out leaving my mouse Neat huh?

Download Episode: Click here

Mac Tip Podcast – #10 – Application Switching

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (6.9MB)

In this episode of Mac Tip Podcast;
Application Switching

Sponsors:
Try GotoMeeting free for 30 days! For this special offer, visit www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts

And by Hostgator with 99.9% uptime, 45 Day Money Back Guarantee and plans as low as $4.95 Mactippodcast.com/hostgator

Show Notes:

Your Mac provides you with a number of ways of switching between applications (programs), in this episode I will teach you how to use the multiple ways to switch between applications

To try this out, open a number of applications at the same time — for instance Safari, Mail, Address Book, Text Edit, and iCal.

Having done so, you should have a pile of windows one on top of the other. So, what’s a good way of switching from one to another?

Hold down the Command (~) key with your left thumb and with your left index finger tap the Tab key. Across the middle of your screen appears a row of large icons-those of the applications you opened. The icon of the application you were working in is at the left hand end of the row and the next to the right is highlighted.

Continue to hold down the Command key and tap the Tab key repeatedly. Each of the icons will be highlighted in turn, moving from left to right. Keep holding down the Command key and this time tap the tilde (~) key — the one above the Tab key — repeatedly. Now the highlight moves from right to left.

When the application you wish to switch to is highlighted, simply release the ~ key, and that application’s window will move to the front.

Now try this. Note which application you are working in, and then press Command/Tab just once and release the Command key. you can also press Command and tab but hold down the command key and use the mouse pointer to select the application you want. Note which application is now at the front. Repeat the simple Command/Tab keypress and you’ll notice that you’re back in the application in which you started. See how easy it is to switch back and forth between two applications?

If you are Command/tabbing your way across the row of program icons and see one that you’d prefer to quit right away, just highlight that icon and while continuing to hold down the Command key, press the Q key. If you see one you’d just like to hide, press the H key instead of Q.

It may be useful to know that after the first Command/Tab, you can directly click the icon you want, using the mouse.
Finally, you can also drag a document onto the application icon of your choice to open it. How? In the Finder, click the icon of a document and begin to drag it. Without releasing the mouse button, pause and press Command/Tab, then continue to drag the document onto the appropriate application icon. Maybe not something you’ll want to do often, but you never know

and then you have exposé, Exposé is a built-in feature that can give you fast access to any open window with a few keystrokes, temporarily hide all open windows, or scale all windows down so you can get an overview of all of them

If you currently don’t have any windows open, other than your web browser window, open a few so you can see Exposé in action.
To show windows by application, press F10; Exposé highlights one application’s open window(s) while dimming everything behind it. To toggle through other application windows, press the Tab key. Click a window to select it, or press F10 to return everything back as it was.
To view all your open windows, press F9. To select a window, click it. To return your view back to normal, press F9 again.
To hide all windows so you can see your Desktop, press F11. Press the key again to display the clutter.

Download Episode: Click here

Mac Tip Podcast – #009 – How to Use Spotlight

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:31 — 6.0MB)

In this episode of Mac Tip Podcast;
How to use Spotlight

Sponsors:
Try GotoMeeting free for 30 days! For this special offer, visit www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts

And by Hostgator with 99.9% uptime, 45 Day Money Back Guarantee and plans as low as $4.95

Show Notes

• If you dont have dictionary enabled, you can easily enable the dictionary feature by opening Terminal Found in Applications -> Utilities and type the following: ” defaults write com.apple.spotlight DictionaryLookupEnabled Yes” and restart your mac

Download Episode: Click here