Mason Sklut.com | The Macintosh Weblog

Use Custom Email Accounts (With Gmail) On Your iPod Touch

When I got my iPod touch, the one thing that frustrated me was the email function. I have several email accounts — work, personal, and the one that comes with my ISP. The only problem was none of these accounts worked with the iPod touch’s Mail application because they require the use of my ISP to send outgoing messages. Thankfully, incoming messages can be received anywhere with a Wi-Fi connection.

About a year ago, I signed up for a Gmail account and really never got to using it because I already had email accounts. Recently, I thought I’d give it a shot and see if I liked it — and surprisingly, I did. For a web application, the customization is almost endless — from themes, to keyboard shortcuts, to calendars, ‘to-do’ lists, and more. After downloading the Gmail Notifier for Mac OS X, I felt satisfied with using Gmail as my main email. Then I had to figure out what to do with all my other email accounts…

Thankfully, Gmail is so customizable that it allows auto-forwarding of your other email accounts. Perfect. Now, I can use Gmail as a “hub” for all of my email accounts. What if I want to send emails using one of the other email accounts’ addresses? Easy. Gmail allows you to add your mail accounts and send mail using those email addresses through Gmail. Now you must be asking how I did all of this? Here’s how:

Get Mail From Other Email Accounts

1. Sign into your Gmail account, or if you do not yet have one, sign up for one.
2. Click on the Settings link in the top right corner of the screen.
3. Enable POP and IMAP under the Forwarding and POP/IMAP section.
4. Now, go to the Accounts section and click the “Add another mail account” link under “Get mail from other accounts:”.
5. Type in your email address and click Next Step.
6. Enter the correct settings for those email accounts.
7. Also, I recommend that you make a label for those emails by checking off “Label incoming messages:” and selecting “New Label” from the drop-down menu.
8. If you Gmail to remove the email message from the other email accounts after it has been forwarded to Gmail, un-check “Leave a copy of retrieved message on the server”.
9. Now add the account by clicking the Add Account button.

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Use Gmail To Send From Your Other Email Addresses

1. Assuming, you are already signed into Gmail, go to the Settings link.
2. Next click on Accounts.
3. Under the “Send mail as:” section, click on “Add another email address”.
4. Once you have entered that email address and clicked Next Step, click Send Verification.
5. Check that email account you just added for a message from Gmail that will verify the account.
6. Once you’ve clicked on the link in the email message the account will be automatically added.

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One more thing I should tell you. If you are planning to use Gmail on your iPod touch, make sure you add the account manually so you can use IMAP. Otherwise, the Mail.app on the iPod touch automatically uses POP. The beauty of IMAP is it allows you to sync your mail with your devices (laptop, iPod touch, work/home computer, etc). Follow Google’s instructions so you won’t get confused.

If you want to be able to send mail from your other email addresses, you can do that from Gmail’s website (choose “From” drop-down menu when you compose mail). If you’d like to reply to the message using the same email address it was sent to, read these instructions. You can also make a default email address from Gmail by  clicking “make default” next to the email addresses under the ‘Send Mail As’ section in Accounts.

Why I Love Apple’s Customer Service

Recently I purchased a set of Anti-Glare Film for my refurbished 16GB iPod touch. First, I must say my refurbished iPod touch came in the mail without a scratch on the front or back. It came with new packaging, documentation, earphones, and a cleaning cloth. I was stunned at how my first refurb product from Apple turned out so well. In the end, I payed $219 for a 16GB iPod touch that costs $299 retail.

Now back to the Anti-Glare film set I bought. There was a slight problem — I ordered the one for the 2nd generation iPod touch, when I have the 1st generation. The thing is there was no clear way for me to know this until I applied the film set and noticed it didn’t fit correctly around the home button (square button). After about five attempts at applying the film set, I gave up and just took it off. I threw away the package when I got it originally (thinking that I would not need to keep it). So, when I called Apple’s Customer Service hotline, I wasn’t sure they would allow me to exchange or return the item. After waiting for less than two minutes on the phone, Customer Service picked up. I told them what happened about getting the wrong film set. Then I told them honestly that I threw away the package and was not sure how I could do a return. They placed a next-day order of the Anti-Glare film set for the 1st generation iPod touch for no charge at all. I couldn’t believe it. After this experience, I now understand why Apple has such a high-ranked customer support.

A few pointers that I should mention, I used eight Apple gift cards on Black Friday when I made this purchase over the phone. I made it over the phone because Apple gift cards beyond 3 years do not have a PIN and therefore are not valid with online purchases. Apple kindly helped me out on the phone with the order. The mistake was that the agent ordered the wrong Anti-Glare film set (which is not so easy to find on Apple’s online store).

Just a few things I learned after applying the film onto my iPod touch twenty times. The first time will rarely work perfectly, there is always a small particle of dust. What I learned is to take it off the iPod using a post it note on one of the corners and place the film sticky-side up on top of something like a magazine. Then get three strips of masking tap to cover the sticky side of the film. That strips the dust off. Then reapply the film. Start towards the bottom, lining up the home button and the hole on the film and use a credit card to slowly press the film down. When you’re done you will see the bubbles made from the masking tape. If you wait about 1 hour they completely go away and it looks perfect. If you do notice dust later on, just follow the masking tape trick. Hope that helps.

Making Graphs With Microsoft Excel

For most Mac users, I would recommend using iWork for your “office” tools. With Number’s ’08, making a graph is just a matter of clicking a button. On the other hand, with Microsoft Excel, there is a little more clicking involved, making it a bit less user-friendly. Since most jobs these days require that you use Microsoft Office, I figured this would help out many individuals.

1. First open up Microsoft Excel.
2. Type in the “X-Axis” values into the first column.
3. In the second column, type in the “Y-Axis” values. Feel free to use more columns depending on your data.
4. Once you’ve finished that up, select all of your “Y-Axis” values.
5. From the menubar, choose Insert > Chart…
6. You’ll be prompted with the “Chart Type” window. Choose a type that suits your needs.
7. After clicking the “Next” button, you should see a preview of your graph showing the data ranges.
8. After confirming the data ranges, click on the “Series” tab at the top of the window.
9. To name the data, click on “Series1″ (or any “Series#”) and type in the title you want in the “Name:” field.
10. When you’ve named all of your series, click on the triangle icon in the “Category (x) axis labels:” field towards the bottom of the window.
11. Select all of your “X-Axis” values from your sheet. In the small pop-up for the X-Axis values, click on the upside down triangle icon to save those values.
12. Click the “Next” button when the “Series” window reappears.
13. In the “Titles” section, enter the main title for the graph and for the X and Y-Axis.
14. You do not usually need to change the settings in the other tabs (i.e. Axes, Gridlines ,etc.), but feel free to.
15. After clicking the “Next” button, the “Chart Location” window appears.
16. Check off “As object in” or “As new sheet” depending on where you want the graph to be inserted.
17. After clicking “Finish”, select your graph and go to File > Print… from the menubar.

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Export Mac OS X Mail Messages (With Attachments)

One problem many Mac users have been noticing lately is the bug Mac OS X 10.5 that does not include attachments when you save Mail messages as RTF. Thanks to Andreas Amann, this bug can be easily remedied with his AppleScript package for Mac OS X Mail. Here is how to export a message to RTF and include attachments:

1. First download the AppleScripts from Amann’s site (link on bottom of site).
2. To install it, just double click on “MailScripts Installer” in the MailScripts.dmg.
3. Next, go to Mac OS X Mail and locate the messages you want to export.
4. If you want to export specific messages instead of all of them, make a mailbox called “RTF”
5. Right-click on the messages you want to export and choose “Copy To” > RTF.
6. In the menubar look for the AppleScript icon next to the Volume icon.
7. In list of AppleScripts that appear, all we care about is “Mail Scripts”.
8. Inside of “Mail Scripts”, choose “Archive Messages…”.
9. Now, select the mailbox RTF.
10. In the “Selection Criteria” window, make sure you pick “Rich Text Format” and “Include Attachments” under “Export Format”.
11. After making any other changes, click OK and the mail message will appear on your Desktop (or elsewhere depending on where you chose to export it) in RTF format with all attachments included.
12. Once you’re finished exporting, you may want to remove the messages (which are copies of the originals, so they’re safe to delete) from the RTF mailbox so they won’t get exported again for the next time.

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Why I Use Visual QuickStart Guide Books

If you’re like me, then you are overwhelmed by the vast selection of computer books and which one to choose. When I’m about to spend weeks learning a web programming language, I prefer to do some quick background info online. Mostly basics such as: why use it?, what can it do for me?, and samples. Once I look through some online tutorials to the point of confusion, then do I get a book. Not just your regular “all-in-one” book, but the Visual QuickStart Guide book. I’ll admit, I’ve bought the “all-in-one” book, and honestly, they suck (for beginners). Assuming you (the reader) are about to begin learning web programming or something else from scratch, it’s best to have a well-written, easy to follow book.

Being a “visual” learner myself, I am able to use my photographic memory to remember certain things from images or books. With the Visual QuickStart Guides, you are always greeted with the background of what it is you’re trying to learn, why you should use it, and lastly how you should use it. Let’s say you’re reading a book about PHP. Each chapter of the book will show several lines of code along with a screenshot (showing the output from the code). Having a screenshot helps me the most because it allows me to focus on the reading and not have to use my computer to see what the output would be. Therefore, saving me time, and frustration.

The first chapters give you the basic tools you need to grasp what it is you want to learn (syntax, rules, etc). By the time you reach the last chapters of the book, there are more realistic examples that will get you going on a project. Once you’ve finished the book, it’s great to keep around for referencing or you can always use the corresponding website for extras. This is why I love using VQS Guide — it allows me to conquer something without all the frustration and anger. That’s one thing I dislike about online tutorials is you learn only bits and pieces, not the whole. To learn something completely, you must start from the beginning and learn the basics to get going. That’s what Visual QuickStart Guides will do and will do it very well.

Use Your iPhoto Library In Adobe Bridge

When it comes to photo editing, iPhoto’s capabilities are not up to par with Bridge or Aperture. Thanks to Apple making Aperture it’s quite easy to import your existing iPhoto library. With Adobe Bridge, the import process is less user-friendly, but in the end you will have all of your pictures from iPhoto easily accessible from Bridge.

1. Open up the Pictures folder in Finder.
2. Locate the iPhoto Library file.
3. Right-click on it and choose Show Package Contents.
4. Inside the contents, locate “Originals” and “Modified”.
5. Hold down Shift and select both folders.
6. Right-click on choose Make Alias.
7. Drag both the aliases into the Pictures folder in Finder.
8. Create a new folder and place both the aliases in the folder.
9. Now, open up Bridge.
10. In the sidebar you should see a Pictures folder.
11. Double-click it and open the folder that contains the aliases you made.
12. Now all you do is browse through the folders in chronological order until you find the picture you wanted.
13. Note: any changes you make using Camera Raw will not show up in iPhoto.

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Changing Mac OS X Archive Preferences

A Nice feature that is conveniently built in with Mac OS X is the Archive feature. It allows you to compress files to reasonable sizes that are more manageable. If you deal with lots of archives and prefer to keep your Mac as organized as possible, you may be glad to hear that you can change the Archive preferences.

1. Open Finder
2. Go to Macintosh HD > System > Library > CoreServices
3. In CoreServices, right-click on Archive Utility and select Show Package Contents.
4. In Contents > Resources, locate Archives.prefPane
5. Double-click on the file and you will be prompted to install it in System Preferences.
6. In System Preferences, click on Archives.
7. The “Save expanded files” field affects the files in the archive you open up.
8. The “After expanding” field allows you to choose a location to put the archive after it expands.
9. The other options should be left with their default settings, unless you want to change them.
10. If you don’t want to keep it System Preferences, just follow steps 1-3 (excluding Show Package Contents) and open up the Archive Utility. From there, go the Archive Utility menu > Preferences.

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Make Your Own Album Covers For Genres In iTunes

With the new version of iTunes 8, you now have the capability to use Grid View as a more organized music selection. One feature in particular that bothered me was the genre section in Grid View because it’s not very customizable for the user. Mostly for me, it’s just that you can’t edit the genre album covers with one of your own. There is a way to use existing album covers from your iTunes library, but still not a way to place your own cover as the default genre cover. With a little creativity and Photoshop, this can be done.

1. Open up iTunes.
2. Go to Grid View and select Genres.
3. Now, look for any genres you want to replace with your own cover.
4. Open up Photoshop, and make a 256px x 256px image for the album cover.
5. Save it as “genre-(genre title goes here).jpg” (e.g. genre-80′s.jpg or genre-classical.jpg).
6. Right-click on iTunes in Finder and choose Show Package Contents.
7. Put the album cover image in the iTunes > Resources folder.
8. Browse through Contents > Resources > “genres.plist” and open it up with a text editor (e.g. Coda or TextEdit).
9. Type in the following code for the genres you want to add album covers for:

     <dict>
        <key>matchString</key><string>80's</string>
        <key>resourceFile</key><string>genre-80's.jpg</string>
     </dict>

10. Choose “Save As” in the text editor program you’re using and save the new “genres.plist” file to your Desktop temporarily.
11. Now, drag “genres.plist” into the iTunes > Contents > Resources folder and replace the old one.
12. Now quit iTunes and then open it back up.
13. You should see the new album cover images you made.
14. Note: Make sure you backup the album images and the “genre.plist” file prior to each iTunes update.

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How To Move Your Files From Windows To Mac

Surprisingly, one of the easiest things when moving to the Mac, is getting all of your previous files from the PC moved over. It’s actually something a lot of newcomers have questions about. Here’s how to do it:

1. On your Mac, open up System Preferences.
2. In System Preferences, click on the Sharing icon.
3. Near the top of the window, change your Computer Name to something else, preferably with one name (i.e. Mason).
4. Now, check the File Sharing service in the left pane.
5. Once you’ve done that, click on the Options button located in the bottom right.
6. Check the “Share files and folders using SMB”. Make sure you check the Account name right below too.
7. Quit System Preferences and go to your Windows PC now.
8. From the Start menu, go to Run.
9. Type in \\mason\Mason (i.e. mason is my Mac’s admin name, and Mason is my Computer Name).
10. Then a window will prompt you for your username and password. Type in the same username and password you do on your Mac.
11. After doing that, you will see all of your Mac’s folders in a new window.
12. I recommend just dragging the files you want directly onto the corresponding Mac folder.
13. It can take a while depending on your file sizes.
14. That’s it!

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Taking Advantage With Photoshop Actions

I use Photoshop for a lot of the design work I do. When I take screenshots for The Macintosh Weblog, I always use a red arrow to point to something in the screenshot that corresponds with the step in the tutorial. The arrow consists of using the line tool and layer styles. That’s it. But the thing is, I use it so often, having to re-do the arrow everytime wastes time. I’ll show you how to save that “valuable” time by using Photoshop Actions:

1. Open up Photoshop and make a new document (⌘ (Command) + N).
2. I’m using the default settings: 7 x 5 inches.
3. Go to Window > Actions and the Actions palette will appear.
4. Click on the “dog-eared” paper icon in the bottom corner of the palette.
5. Type a title for your action and choose a keyboard hotkey to activate it.
6. Click “Record” and start making the action.
7. When you’re done with recording the action, click on the stop button (square icon) in the Actions palette.
8. Now you have a simple (or complicated) action that you can easily activate when you use Photoshop.

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