Category Archives: Macintosh

New to the Mac? This category will help you make the transition with guides and tips on how to begin using the Mac and how to grow with yours as you become more comfortable in your new environment.

Multi-button mousing with your Mac

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One of the biggest issues that detractors of the Mac have had over the years is that Macs don’t work with two-button mouses. And one of the curious things about detractors of the Mac is that they apparently have never used one. Macs work with multi-button mouses. They have done so for years. Until recently, Apple only sold one-button mouses, but Mac OS X has supported multi-button mouses since it was first released on March 24, 2001. Apple now only sells multi-button mouses.

The multiple button Mighty Mouse that Apple designed retains the overall form of the Apple Mouse that it replaced and works as a single-button mouse for those that don’t feel the need for multiple buttons and to reduce stress on the index finger since the mouse can be clicked with your entire hand.

So, if you feel the need to right-click, you’ll want to change your system preferences since the mouse defaults to acting like one with a single button. System Preferences are accessed through the Apple menu in the menu bar. Select the Keyboard & Mouse icon that is in the Hardware grouping. Then select the Mouse tab at the top of the window and you’ll see all of the preferences you can set for your mouse. By default both the left and right side of the mouse are set to act as the primary button. Regardless of which side of the mouse you click on, it’ll always register as a “left-click.” So, you’ll want to set one of those to the secondary button. If you’re a right-hander, then you will be most comfortable setting the right side to the secondary button. Keep in mind that the secondary button is registered if only that side is touched when you click the mouse. I really like this feature because I can still use the mouse like a single-button mouse (clicking with my entire hand), and when I need to context-click on something I just click on the right side of the mouse.

You can also set what happens when you click either the scroll ball or the side buttons. There is a key on your keyboard that will activate the Dashboard, so I don’t understand why Apple defaulted the scroll ball to this function. And, the Exposé key on your keyboard will reveal all windows for you, so the side buttons could also be put to better use. My recommendation is to use the two extra mouse buttons for Exposé, but you can set them to whatever you want. I’ve got the scroll ball set to show me the windows for my current application (Exposé – App Windows) and the side buttons set to expose the desktop (Exposé – Desktop). I feel this is best because if you’re going to your desktop, you’re probably going to be dragging something to or from it and dragging works well with the side buttons. You can also see from the screen shot that I increased the tracking speed to be closer to what I was used to on Windows. Adjust this slider to whatever makes you comfortable.

Now you’re all set. You can close the system preferences and use the mouse the way you want to from here on out. Just remember that if you have more than one account set up on your Mac, the other people can configure their own preferences for the mouse. So, you can turn on all of the buttons on your account but make all of them (including the scroll ball and side buttons) act as the primary button for your young child’s account.

Watching AVIs & WMVs with QuickTime

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If you’ve had your Macintosh for a while, you’ve undoubtedly run into the occasional video on the Web that you can’t view. They’re usually classic Windows formatted videos like Audio Video Interleave (AVI) or Windows Media Video (WMV). This can be easily remedied and it doesn’t even involve running anything other than QuickTime to watch the videos.

QuickTime is an advanced multimedia authoring and playback system. As such, it has support for a wide range of components that expand the functionality of QuickTime to support a variety of technologies – including AVI & WMV.

There are two things you need to download. The first is Perian. This is what will give you the ability to play back AVI files (and DIVX, FLV, MKV, GVI, VP6, VFW files as well). Perian is open source software, so there is no fee for using it. However, the development team would appreciate a donation if you get a lot of use out of their work.

To be able to view WMV movies, you need to download the Windows Media Components by Flip4Mac. There is a free version of this that will allow you to play back Windows Media in QuickTime as well your web browser. And you can also upgrade to one of their other versions that start at $29 and give  you extra functionality like being able to convert Windows Media to another format such as MPEG-4 AVC.

Once you have these two QuickTime components installed, you’re prepared to play virtually any video you might come across. And you never need to think about it. Just open them in QuickTime as you would any other movie.

What is Exposé?

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Exposé is a feature of Mac OS X that allows you to see all of your open windows at any time. All you have to do is press the function key labeled with the Exposé icon on your keyboard (F3) and all of your windows will slide around to reveal other windows behind them – shrinking when necessary. It also dims the desktop so that the windows really pop out from the background. You can then move your pointer over one to see the title of that window. Clicking while over a window will switch to that window and every window will resize itself back to normal and slide back to where it was.

This is very useful for finding the window you want to be working in at the moment. It might be better than using the Command+` keyboard shortcut depending on how you like to work. But, it has even more usefulness than that. If you’re working in one window and you want to drag something out of it into a different window, Exposé works for that too. All you have to do is:

  1. start your drag
  2. activate Exposé
  3. hover over the window that you want to drop onto
  4. deactivate Exposé
  5. complete your drag & drop

Quickly tapping the Exposé key will reveal the windows and they’ll hang there in space waiting for you to do something. But, if you hold down the Exposé key, the windows will rearrange themselves only for as long as you hold down the key. Once you lift your finger, the windows will go back to normal. Holding the Exposé key is a good way to handle dragging & dropping.

You can also activate Exposé through a variety of ways that can be set in your System Preferences. Select the Exposé & Spaces System Preference and you can set Exposé to activate by moving your pointer to one of the four screen corners, typing keystrokes, or clicking mouse buttons.

The normal behavior for the Exposé key is exposing All Windows. Holding the Command key while pressing the Exposé key will move all the windows out of the way to reveal the Desktop. This is helpful since current Apple keyboards only have one function key labeled with the Exposé icon. Using the Command modifier key means you don’t have to remember which other unlabeled function key you may have assigned the Exposé – Desktop command to. Use the same keyboard shortcut to bring the windows back to normal (if you aren’t using the hold method from above). You can also modify the behavior of Exposé by holding the Control key while pressing the Exposé key to show only the current Application Windows. Again, use the same keyboard shortcut to bring the windows back to normal. Finally, for some fun, you can hold down the Shift key while pressing the Exposé key to watch the animations in slow-motion.

Conficker Worm Infects 3.5M Windows PCs So Far

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F-Secure, a security firm based in Finland, conservatively estimates that 3.5 million Windows PCs have been infected with a new worm called “Downadup” or “Conficker.” It is infecting Windows computers at a rate of more than 1 million in the past 24 hours. According to ComputerWorld, the worm exploits “a bug in the Windows Server service” that is used in all versions of Windows currently supported by Microsoft; including Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.

Microsoft recommends that Windows users install an update provided in late October and follow that up by running the latest version of their Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) which was updated this January in response to the Downadup worm. There is another cure, however.

Update: According to Panda Security, the Downadup outbreak is now an epidemic. Additionally, F-Secure notes that “Downadup disables Automatic Updates, so updated versions of MSRT will need to be downloaded manually, it will not be automatically installed on infected machines.”

Mike Huckabee Switches to Mac; Praises Apple

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Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas and current personality for Fox News program “Huckabee“, has recently switched to the Mac after 22 years of using a PC. Mike Huckabee was fearful of making the switch – 22 years is a lot of history to leave behind. But, he credits the “patient and personable staff” of the Apple Store in New York with making his switch “a breeze.” He doesn’t mention whether he took advantage of their Personal Shopping program or not, but if you’re interested in making the switch it is something that I recommend taking advantage of. It’s a great program that even experienced Mac users can benefit from.

Thanks to Leo Laporte from MacBreak Weekly for the tip.

Upgrading Mac OS X

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Regardless of what your experiences have been with Windows in the past, traditionaly upgrading the OS of a Mac has resulted in a faster computer. Apple has consistently made noticable performance improvements with each new release of Mac OS X. And the focus of the next OS, Snow Leopard, is on increasing the performance and reducing the storage requirements of the OS. In addition to the performance improvements you’ll find, there are over 300 new features in the current OS, Leopard, that will will save you time and generally improve your experience. Three big ones to highlight are Quick Look, Time Machine, and Spaces. 

The bottom line is… Don’t be afraid of upgrading your Mac OS. Just make sure you have a recent backup before doing so – as you should with any computer.

Why that application is still running

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One of the things that may be confounding you in your first days of being a Mac user is how to quit your applications. With Windows, if you can’t see any application windows it almost always means you’ve quit the application. There are some newer exceptions to this behavior like instant messenging applications that still run in the system tray.

On the Mac, most applications continue to run until you explicitly quit them. You can quit the application by selecting Quit from the application’s menu in the menu bar (to the right of  the Apple Menu) or by holding the Command key while pressing the Q key while the application is the front-most one. You can tell which application is front-most by looking for its name in bold in the menu bar on the top left of your screen.

There are some Mac applications that deviate from this, like iPhoto, but they are almost always single-window applications. The applications that do deviate from this will quit when you close their last or only window.

Below is a quote from Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines that developers use to help design their applications to be consistent with other applications developed by Apple or other third-party developers.

In most cases, applications that are not document-based should quit when the main window is closed. For Example, System Preferences quits if the user closes the window. If an application continues to perform some function when the main window is closed, however, it may be appropriate to leave it running when the main window is closed. For example, iTunes continues to play when the user closes the main window.

The New 17" MacBook Pro

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Today Apple announced what they claim to be the world’s thinnest and lightest 17-inch notebook computer.

This computer uses the same unibody aluminum enclosure that Apple touted with their new MacBooks and MacBook Pros last autumn. The key differences with this one are, of course, the massive 17″ 1920 by 1200 screen and a non-user-serviceable battery. That’s right, you can’t remove this battery but as a result Apple took advantage of their reduced design constraints to deliver up to 8 hours of battery life on a charge.

Other differences over the existing 15″ MacBook Pro are the extra USB 2.0 port included on the new 17″ notebook, availability of a 256GB solid-state drive, a 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor standard (2.93 Ghz optional), and an optional anti-glare display for an extra $50.

Apple Numbers ’09

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Apple today released an improved version of Numbers along with the rest of the iWork ’09 office suite.

They’ve taken this opportunity to really enhance their support for calculations in the spreadsheet. Numbers ’09 now includes over 250 functions each with built-in help and support for visual placeholders for each variable of the formula – instead of the old A1:D12 format you may be used to from Excel. To assist with this, Numbers also has a Formula List view for all of the calculations in your spreadsheet. And you can search this list by formula, function, or cell reference.

Charts are another area that Apple focused on improving this year. They’ve put considerable work into improving the different ways you might want to chart your data. In addition, they’ve also added the ability to link your charts from Numbers to either Pages or Keynote. And, you can change the chart styles, textures, colors, and fonts in your Pages document or Keynote presentation and they’ll stay linked to the original data in Numbers.

You can try out Numbers by downloading the free iWork ’09 trial.

Apple Pages ’09

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Apple updated Pages during Macworld 2009 as part of an update to their iWork suite that also included updates to Keynote and Numbers.

The key new feature in Pages is the ability to write in a full screen mode that gets rid of all of the distractions of other windows. Even menu bars and tool bars are hidden until you need them. And full screen mode will also let you work with two pages side-by-side.

Also added is an outlining mode that allows you to drag & drop to rearrange your thoughts. Images and movies will appear in the outline either as thumbnails or actual size.

The ability to do mail merging with Numbers and Address Book was added. Also new is support for EndNote X2 and MathType for people with serious words that need processing.

There is a free 30-day trial of the iWork ’09 office suite.