April 24th, 2008
Being a tutorial writer myself, I always like to see what other writers are doing and such. All of my tutorials are 100 percent original work from my experience with Mac OS X. On the side, when I’m not writing tutorials or helping people out with computer problems, I like to code websites. For the past couple of months, I’ve been trying to gather all of the information I need to put together a website. Being a beginner to the website world, I thought I’d share a few tips to help you get started.
Books vs Online Material
I’ll admit, when I first starting dabbling with websites, I wanted something that had easy-to-read material. Books are a great source for learning, but the web has improved significantly. Two of the most helpful sites for me have been W3Schools and CSS-Tricks. W3schools is a complete reference to every web language out there, with try-it-yourself examples. CSS-Tricks has been the most help for me when it comes to understanding the true tricks of the trade for coding with CSS.
I did buy a book, the Visual QuickStart Guide 6th Edition: HTML, XHTML, and CSS. I use it now only as a quick reference for one thing or another, but it’s nice to have for the times when you get rusty on a few coding rules and such.
Designing Beautiful Graphics
Many of you have probably heard of Adobe and what kind of programs they have. They have several that are used mostly to create web graphics such as Fireworks, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. I personally prefer to use Photoshop for my web designs as I have become quite familiar with the program. When it comes to learning how to design graphics for websites, I have gotten a lot out of PSDtuts and Smashing Magazine. PSDtuts is an excellent resource for Photoshop tutorials. With weekly tutorials covering how to make neat graphics for web purposes and how to make an retro image. Smashing Magazine covers pretty much everything you’ll ever need to know about the web. They post articles on what makes effective web design, how to make your site attractive, and even coding tips that will greatly improve your skills.
Do-It-Yourself: DIY
I’ve really been learning a bit on my own too. With several browsers now, you can easily inspect a website and understand how the code is being used. This will be a great way for you to see how people make their sites. In Safari, right-click and choose “Inspect Element”. To enable this feature, type:
defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitDeveloperExtras -bool true into Terminal to make it work.
In Firefox, use the Web Developer extension or the Firebug extension.
April 10th, 2008
These are some useful search tips for using Google’s search engine. There are lots more, but for now I’m just going to share a few that I find the most useful.
Searching For Free MP3′s
- Type in
"index of" "mp3" "boston"
(replace boston with any artist name or song).
- Choose one of the results in Google that is most relevant to the artist or song.
- When you see the page load with all of the “.mp3″ files, right-click on the one you want and choose “Download Linked File” from the contextual menu.
Conversions
- You can convert volumes, currencies, and more using Google’s search bar.
- If you want to convert a volume 5 liters to milliliters, type in
"5 l to ml". Hit the “Return” key and you will get instant results.
- For converting currencies type in the number of what currency you have and then which currency you want to convert it to. For example
"5 pesos to euros".
Defining Terms
- By typing in
"define:" and then placing a term after the colon, Google will list all possible definitions for the term.
Getting The Time
- To get the time in major US cities as well as your own, type
"what time is it" or just "time" in the Google search bar.
Stock Quotes
- To quickly see how a stock is doing, type in the stock symbol (ex:
"AAPL") and you will see a graph along with the highs and lows for the day
screenshots: Free MP3′s Conversions Time Stock Quotes Defining
March 30th, 2008
David Allen’s book, titled “Getting Things Done,” is a very well-written book that teaches you how to use the GTD system to become a more productive individual. To start off, I’ll just explain the very basics of GTD that I’ve tweaked and used on daily basis with my workflow.
How To Incorporate GTD Into Your Workflow
- Find a good task-manager application (e.g. OmniFocus or Things) to collect all of your ideas.
- Organize specific categories to place each task into: Inbox, Current Projects, Next Actions, etc.
- If you know it will take less than 2 minutes, go ahead and get it over with. If it will take longer, delegate it with a due date.
- Organize your email into categorized folders (Archives, Family, Due Next Week, Bills, Other, etc.)
- When you use something put it back to its original spot, that way nothing gets out of place.
Other Tips To Help You With GTD
- Keep a pad of Post-it’s™ and pen with you. This way you can jot down a quick idea or something and you won’t forget it. Personally, I use this when I find new features about applications that I want to go back to later.
- Throw away a magazine after you read it, there’s no reason to keep it — otherwise, scan the magazine article.
- Keep your desk area neat.
- Scan paper documents onto your computer, so you won’t lose them and to conserve desk space.
- Make a list of goals you want to complete by the end of the week/month/year.
I hope this helps you understand the basics of David Allen’s GTD system. I recommend you buy his book and read through it to truly understand all that his system has to offer.
March 18th, 2008
There are many different translation services available online such as FreeTranslation.com and Google Language Tools. The great thing about those services is that you can almost always find what you need. The downside about those services is that they only work when you’re connected to the internet. Thanks to Philipp Brauner‘s Dictionary.app plug-in, you can now use a translation service (German to English) right within the Dictionary application. The coolest feature about this plug-in is that it doesn’t require you to be connected to the internet while you use it. The package includes the complete German to English vocabulary from Dict.cc. I congratulate him on making this app as it comes in handy when you’re on the run and need to quickly access to a translation service, but don’t have internet-access. One more thing to mention is that this plug-in works with Spotlight, the Dictionary.app, and the Dictionary widget as well. As of now, this plug-in is only for German to English translation, but hopefully in the future, Philipp will continue developing this plug-in to include more languages.
screenshots: Click here for a screenshot
Thanks to Philipp Brauner for asking me to write up the article!
March 17th, 2008
When it comes to maintaining a clean workspace, a scanner is by far one of the best tools for the job. With a scanner, you can easily store all of those documents from your desk into your computer. The great thing about having them on your computer is that there is an endless number of possibilities with what you can do. Honestly, the only reason why I scan documents onto my computer is so that I can search through them, especially for longer documents. By using Adobe Acrobat’s OCR-recognition feature, you can now turn those long, small-font, paper documents into digital text-searchable documents. Here’s how:
- Turn on your scanner.
- Open up Acrobat and go to File > Create PDF > From Scanner…
- In the Acrobat Scan window, adjust the settings to your liking.
- Be sure to check off “Make Searchable” and “Make Accessible”.
- If you want, click on the “Options” button under Text Recognition and Metadata to edit the OCR settings.
- Now click on the “Scan” button to scan the document into Acrobat.
- When the scan is done, wait for Acrobat to finalize the document so it’s searchable.
- Now when you open up the PDF with Acrobat or Preview, it is now searchable (text) and when you search with Spotlight it will go through those PDF’s as well.
screenshots: 2 3-4 5 6 8
March 3rd, 2008
The game of chess can be quite a boring game when played on the usual board, but not when played on a Mac. When you play the Chess game included on all Macs, you’d be quite surprised at how enjoyable your computer will make the game seem. The cool thing about playing chess on your Mac is you have the ability to control each one of your players just by using your voice. You can change which board you play on as well. Here’s how:
- Load up Chess from your Applications folder.
- Once it loads, you should notice a small silver circle appear with “Esc” in the center.
- To move a player, you simply hold down the Esc button and say something like “Pawn A2 to A3″.
- Although that sounds simple, you should have a basic understanding of the game itself beforehand.
- If you’d like to change the looks of your chessboard, hold down the ⌘ (Command) and the “,” keys to activate the preferences.
- From there, choose one of the Board styles: Wood, Metal, Marble, or Glass.
- Likewise, you can do the same with board pieces.
screenshots: 2 3 6
February 23rd, 2008
In the new version of Microsoft Office (2008), you have probably noticed the massive improvements to the user-interface. Thanks to designers at EnhancedLabs, the interface is remarkably beautiful. One of the main features to point out in the new version of Office are the Toolbars which now carry so much functionality with the SmartArt Graphics, Quick Tables, Charts, and the Document Elements. You can do just about everything you can imagine possible with Microsoft Office 2008. I’ll get you started by pointing out where the new features are and how to use them.
Using Handy Toolbars in Word
- When you first open Word, you’ll see a new toolbar with many new additions.
- When you select something from the toolbar like SmartArt Graphics, it should appear directly within your document.
- When it appears, go ahead and enter in any data you need to, then feel free to customize the looks of it with the Formatting Palette.
screenshots: 1-2 3
Word’s New Layout Views
- In the new version of Word, there are new layout views such as Publishing Layout which is an amazing page-layout view with lots of templates.
- The second layout update is the Notebook layout, which you just about customize any way you like.
- I highly recommend you spend the time to go through each of those layouts and edit the built-in templates to learn all of the features they’re capable of.
screenshots: 1 2
Setting Up Default Fonts in Microsoft Office
- If you used Microsoft Office 2004, then you probably remember that the default font was Times New Roman. That’s not the case with Office 2008 — it’s now Cambria.
- Most of the documents I make with Word, must be in Times New Roman. To change the default font, hold down the ⌘ (Command) + “D” keys to activate the Font window.
- Locate Times New Roman or whichever font you wish, then click on the “Default…” button in bottom left corner.
screenshots: 2-3
“Slide Thumbnails” Sidebar in PowerPoint
- When you opened up PowerPoints in previous version of Microsoft Office for Mac, there wasn’t a sidebar that showed thumbnails of each slide. With the new version a sidebar has been included with this feature. I personally like it, so I can easily identify a certain slide and go right to it.
- With PowerPoint open, just click on the sidebar in the left-hand side and select “Slides” instead of “Outline” to make the thumbnails appear.
screenshots: 1-2
PowerPoint Slide Transitions And Animations
- Now in PowerPoint, adding Transitions and Animations has never been easier.
- If you’d like to add a Transition, just choose “Transitions” from the Toolbar.
- For Custom Animations, select the part of the slide for which you want to animate, then click on the
icon in the Formatting Palette.
screenshots: 2 3
Changing The Looks Of Your Graphs in Excel
- Just like in Numbers ’08, you can now easily change the look of your Excel Graphs right from the Toolbar.
- Select the graph for which you want to change.
- Select another style from the Toolbar.
screenshots: 2-3
February 14th, 2008
If you like to edit your photos using an external editor such as Photoshop and like to use iPhoto to manage them, you’ve probably encountered a problem as to how to sync the iPhoto library with the edits you make. If you have not encountered that problem, I still recommend you take a look at this article as it may make things easier for you.
- With iPhoto open, hold down the ⌘ (Command) and the “,” keys to activate the Preferences window.
- In the Preferences window, make sure you’re in the General section. Then, go to the “Edit photo:” field and choose the external editor of choice in the drop-down menu.
- Now, switch back to your library and select some photos that you would like to edit with the external editor. Hold down the Shift key or the ⌘ (Command) key to select more than one photo. Now right-click and choose “Edit in external editor” from the contextual menu.
- The second way to open up photos, is within the external editor (Photoshop).
- Open up Photoshop, and go to File > Open…
- Now browse the photos in the Finder window and use the Shift or ⌘ (Command) key to select more than one photo.
- Once you’ve finished making the edits to the image(s), save it (hold down ⌘ (Command) + “S”).
- When you look at your iPhoto library, you should notice the changes made to the selected image(s).
- If you wish to revert back to the original image, just right-click on the image and choose “Revert to Original” from the contextual menu.
screenshots: 2 3 5 6 9
February 10th, 2008
Included with all new Macs is a neat little app called OmniOutliner. It serves as an “outliner” application which helps you put together your ideas. When you first open OmniOutliner, you may be shocked by how plain and simple its interface is. After this article, you will be surprised at all the power that OmniOutliner has. My main usage for this application is to make and manage my to-do lists — and man does it do a great job of doing that.
- Go ahead and open up OmniOutliner.
- Click on the “Inspect” button in the top right corner, or just hold down the Shift, ⌘ (Command), and “I” keys.
- In the document that is open, select everything by holding down the ⌘ (Command) and the “A” keys. Now in the Inspect panel, go to the “Document: Display” section. Check off “Horizontal Grid” and “Vertical Grid”.
- If you’d like to change the color of the grids, just click on the small color box beside “Horizontal/Vertical Grid” in the Inspect panel. Then select your color using the Color window (personally, I prefer a light gray color because it’s easier to look at).
- One of the key steps in setting up a to-do list is proper organization.
- The best way to organize your to-do list is with “categories”, such as “Other”, “To Buy”, “Projects”, or “Organize”.
- To make these categories, just type the word in the first line with bold (hold down the ⌘ (Command) + “B” keys) print followed by a colon (“:“).
- After you’ve typed the category title, hit the Return key, then the Tab key.
- To add a column for due dates, just click on the “Add Column” button.
- Now just type in your due dates in that extra column.
- If you plan to use OmniOutliner a lot for one to-do list, I recommend you set it up to open that to-do list every-time you use OmniOutliner.
- Just hold down the ⌘ (Command) and “,” keys and in the preferences window, check off “Open documents which were open last time you quit”.
- That’s it! You can do as much customization as you want, but I prefer to keep my to-do lists very simple and easy to follow.
screenshots: 2 3 4 7-8 9 10 12
February 10th, 2008
In the new version of iWork ’08, Numbers was included along with the traditional Pages and Keynote applications. Numbers is basically Apple’s version of Microsoft Office Excel. In this article, I am just going cover to basics you need to give you a general idea of how much Numbers is capable of. To experience more of Numbers functionality, I highly recommend you use the Inspector panel (hold down the Option, ⌘ (Command), and “I” keys to activate it) along with the built-in Templates to truly take advantage of making graphs.
Calculating Graph Data
- When there is a graph with data filled in it, you can easily find out everything about the graph such as sums, averages, minimums, and maximums within a few clicks.
- To start, select the first item in the graph and hold down the Shift key.
- Then click anywhere else to finish making your selection.
- Instantaneously, you’ll notice results appear in the bottom left sidebar in Numbers.
screenshots: 2-4
Changing The Style For A Graph
- Select the graph for which you want to change the style.
- Now, take a look at the Styles menu in the left sidebar in Numbers.
- Choose any one of those styles and it will be automatically be applied to your graph.
screenshots: 1-3
Order Graph Data From Ascending/Descending
- As I mentioned previously, to select a specific range on a graph clicking once and hold the the Shift key, then click one more time to finalize your selection.
- Hover your mouse pointer over a graph until the column headers (“A”, “B”, “C”) appear.
- When you put hover your mouse pointer over one of the columns, you should see a small arrow appear.
- Click on the arrow, and choose “Sort Ascending” or “Sort Descending” to change the order of the data.
screenshots: 2-4
Changing The Data Units In A Graph
- Go ahead and select the parts of the graph you want to change the units for (remember: use the Shift key to select specific areas).
- Now go up to the Format Bar and select one the the units listed (1.0 $ % ✓).
screenshots: 2
Adding Images To Your Graphs
- Numbers makes adding images to your graphs incredibly easy.
- Select and spot to place your image and open up the Media Browser (located above the Format Bar beside Inspector).
- Now drag and drop your image into the graph wherever you’d like.
- You can also add a shadow or reflection via the Format Bar.
- Use the Inspector panel to change how your reflections and shadows appear.
screenshots: 2-4 5
