Category: Uncategorized

Maybe my favorite hidden Mac feature

Did you know about the built-in dictionary? This is in OS X since Tiger: It’s a weird key combo, but it’s sooooo cool: In Mail or TextEdit or Safari — any good Mac app (which excludes, par exemple, MS Office 2004 but includes Office 2008) — put your cursor over any word, and hold down ctrl-command-D. Cool, huh? (The “command” key is now called that on newer keyboards; it used to be the key with an apple and a squiggly thing.)

Now move your cursor over other words while holding down those keys. Notice that there’s a thesaurus in the drop-down that says “Dictionary.” Now tell me that’s not friggin’ sweet.

Finally: real Mac speech-recognition software!

MacSpeech Dictate, shipping in February. I just saw a demo at David Pogue’s Macworld Live. It’s still young, but it works!
Shipping in February. It’s by the folks who did the less-than-perfect iListen, but it’s based on the Dragon NaturallySpeaking engine. This is really great news.

Macworld keynote: the Cliff notes

My impressions are the same as everybody else’s, I suppose. So here’s a quick recap.

Yay, movie rentals!

Boo, 24 hours to watch ’em!

Yay, movie rentals and other shit on Apple TV, justifying the money early adopters (including your humble) paid.

Yay, iPhone updates!

Boo, lame iPhone updates!

Yay, MacBook Air!

Yaaaaaaaaay, MacBook Air, although the maximum of 2Gb RAM is a smart move by Apple to prevent it being used for serious work like graphics or photo manip. (I make grandmas buy 2Gb for their Macs.)

Yay, Time Capsule!

Boo, not letting existing Airport Extremes use their Air Disks for Time Machine backups! (Although one can do it with Mac OS X client or server.)

Yay, Manhattans at Jilian’s next door to MacWorld…………!


Macworld keynote: the Cliff notes

My impressions are the same as everybody else’s, I suppose. So here’s a quick recap.

Yay, movie rentals!

Boo, 24 hours to watch ’em!

Yay, movie rentals and other shit on Apple TV, justifying the money early adopters (including your humble) paid.

Yay, iPhone updates!

Boo, lame iPhone updates!

Yay, MacBook Air!

Yaaaaaaaaay, MacBook Air, although the maximum of 2Gb RAM is a smart move by Apple to prevent it being used for serious work like graphics or photo manip. (I make grandmas buy 2Gb for their Macs.)

Yay, Time Capsule!

Boo, not letting existing Airport Extremes use their Air Disks for Time Machine backups! (Although one can do it with Mac OS X client or server.)

Yay, Manhattans at Jilian’s next door to MacWorld…………!


Sharing files across the internet

Can you recommend any do-it-myself FTP software? One of our co-workers has started working remotely, and we need to share files with her.


Two recommendations (neither of which involve setting up your own FTP site, which would be a bit of a hassle, and not terribly secure): 


The easiest thing to use is the 10GB iDisk that comes an Apple .Mac (“dot Mac”) account. Check out the details at http://mac.com. At $99/year, it’s a service that Apple would like everyone to buy, because it’s easy profit for them; a lot of people buy it, but not everyone understands what it can do for them, and the money ends up going to waste. But it can be very useful — I use my .Mac services daily — to publish photos, sync address book and calendar information, work remotely with the iDisk and the new Back to My Mac feature. 

The other possibility, one that I’ve used and thought was pretty cool, is a free 5GB Xdrive from, believe it or not, AOL. It works through a web browser, so it’s just a little clunky, but in some ways that makes it pretty easy to work with.

Sharing files across the internet

Can you recommend any do-it-myself FTP software? One of our co-workers has started working remotely, and we need to share files with her.


Two recommendations (neither of which involve setting up your own FTP site, which would be a bit of a hassle, and not terribly secure): 


The easiest thing to use is the 10GB iDisk that comes an Apple .Mac (“dot Mac”) account. Check out the details at http://mac.com. At $99/year, it’s a service that Apple would like everyone to buy, because it’s easy profit for them; a lot of people buy it, but not everyone understands what it can do for them, and the money ends up going to waste. But it can be very useful — I use my .Mac services daily — to publish photos, sync address book and calendar information, work remotely with the iDisk and the new Back to My Mac feature. 

The other possibility, one that I’ve used and thought was pretty cool, is a free 5GB Xdrive from, believe it or not, AOL. It works through a web browser, so it’s just a little clunky, but in some ways that makes it pretty easy to work with.

Can I make my menu bar fonts larger?

is there a way to increase the size of the menu bar (mainly the type size)? I have a new large display, but the menu items are tiny.


An age-old question. Apple has not built in a way to do this, but that's when 3rd parties come to the rescue. I have used TinkerTool for a long time to do things like this, and a whole bunch more. It's free, and while it's a use-at-your-own-risk product, I have never had any trouble with it. You can always ask it to revert to the system defaults:

 
 

Can I make my menu bar fonts larger?

is there a way to increase the size of the menu bar (mainly the type size)? I have a new large display, but the menu items are tiny.


An age-old question. Apple has not built in a way to do this, but that's when 3rd parties come to the rescue. I have used TinkerTool for a long time to do things like this, and a whole bunch more. It's free, and while it's a use-at-your-own-risk product, I have never had any trouble with it. You can always ask it to revert to the system defaults:

 
 

iPhone time off by an hour

When I sync my calendar to my iPhone, the times that go on my iPhone calendar always appear an hour later.

I had this problem myself. You have to turn off “Time Zone Support” in Settings -> General -> Date & Time. Then, you likely will have to reset the phone’s caledndar information, which is done in the left column of iTunes: Click on your iPhone under Devices, then click the Info tab in the main window. Scroll all the way down to the Advanced section. Under “Replace information on this iPhone:” click the checkbox by “Calendars”. Then click the Sync button.