Keyboard Shortcuts for OS X

I thought I’d post a few shortcuts to speed up the Sleep, Restart and Shut Down commands. There’s actually quite a few ways to accomplish these tasks, so I’ll try to mention all the methods I’ve heard of.

The first: hold the option key while selecting Restart or Shut Down from the Apple Menu to bypass the ‘Are You Sure?’ dialog, and cut right to the chase. You even get visual feedback in the Apple Menu; click the menu, then press the option key to see the trailing dots disappear from those two commands (as far as I know, this is a typical UI feedback element used throughout the OS; any commands – at least in Cocoa apps – that have keyboard modifiers will change their appearance in the menu if you press the modifier before choosing the option).

The second method is my personal favorite: 100% keyboard shortcuts. Here’s a list:

• Sleep = opt + cmd + eject
• Restart = ctrl + cmd + eject
• Shut Down = ctrl + opt + cmd + eject

The third method, involving the power key, can still be counted as a keyboard shortcut, but since I almost never touch the power key (), I don’t really consider it part of my typical keystroke regimen. For you power key lovers out there, you can press your Mac’s power key, and at the resulting ‘Are you sure?’ dialog that contains four buttons (Restart, Sleep, Cancel and Shut Down), you can press the first letters of a couple of these actions. Specifically, ‘r’ for Restart, ‘s’ for Sleep and Enter for Shut Down. ‘C’ for Cancel doesn’t seem to work, but Esc should get you out of the dialog if you need to keep computing.

Here’s hoping you don’t have a Homer Simpson-like brain, where each new shortcut you learn knocks out an old one. Feel free to chime in with your thoughts on these shortcuts, and enjoy one more trick for working with your Mac just a little bit faster.

Keywords in iPhoto

by Dave Caolo

It’s easy to fill your iPhoto library with pictures. However, the task of finding the ones you’re after isn’t. The Events feature of iPhoto ’08 is helpful, and you can improve it with Keywords.

Think of keywords as tags. You can assign any keyword(s) to any photo, like “Suzie,” “Summer” or “Beach.” Then, simply search “Suzie” to find relevant photos, sorted by event. Here’s how to do it.

From the “View” menu, select “Keywords” (or hit Shift-Apple-K). Next, click beneath your photos to reveal the keyword text field. Enter as many comma-separated keywords as you like; previously used keywords will auto-complete.

Here’s an added bonus. You can also search by keyword via the Image Browser in Pages (see above).

How to Protect Your Battery

We all love portable devices because they provide flexibility. Ironically most of the time they are being used as desktop devices and are plugged in all the time.

This is potentially a problem because batteries wear off much more faster if they are not being used enough.

To protect your battery in your MacBook, MBP, iPod or iPhone let it completely go empty until the device switches off. Then, charge it to 100% again. This cycle will “format” your battery and allows it operate more efficiently on the long term. Format your battery this way at least once in two weeks. The more you do it the better.

Using Address Book

Mac 101: Address Book A-Z

by Dave Caolo

Address Book is the contact management software bundled with every new Mac. It’s easy to use and well integrated with Mail and iCal. Let’s explore some of its capabilities.

Creating a new record

There are three ways to do this. The first is to select “New Card” from the “File” menu. The second is to click the “+” icon below the “Name” column. Finally, you can press Command – N on your keyboard.

Next, fill in the fields. Some have drop-down titles. For example, you can label a phone number as “work”, “home” or “mobile”. Finally, you can add a note to the notes field.

Adding a photo is fun. Just click the photo box next to a contact’s name and a new window appears. From there, you can browse to a photo on your computer or take a snapshot with your iSight camera. You can even apply some filters to the photo by clicking the Filters button on the right hand side of the window. That photo will appear on that person’s record, on email messages retreived with Apple’s Mail and on a synchronized iPhone or iPod.

Active Screen Corners

Mac 101: Active Screen Corners

by Robert Palmer

If you’ve ever had a panicked moment at work when you need to clear your screen quickly (because you’re working on a colleague’s birthday card, of course!), Active Screen Corners are for you. They can also activate your screen saver, and help you manage Spaces and Exposé.

To use Active Screen Corners, first open System Preferences (by selecting it from the Apple Menu). Then, click the “Exposé & Spaces” icon.

In the Exposé tab, you’ll see there are four corners that you can activate. To use an Active Screen Corner, just move your mouse all the way into that corner. To reverse the action, just move your mouse out of, and then back into, the same corner.

For each corner, there are several handy options. Read on to see what you can do with your Active Screen Corners.

Continue reading “Mac 101: Active Screen Corners”

Talking Text

Mac 101: Make any text speak to you

by Cory Bohon

Have you ever wished your Mac could read a long text document to you? Well, with the speech service, you can easily have your Mac read as much or as little text as you want.

While in Safari, TextEdit, Pages, and other applications; select the text you want to be read, then click the application name in the menu bar. Go to Services > Speech > Start Speaking Text. Your Mac will then use the default voice to read the text. It will continue reading until it reaches the end of the selected text, or you can select Services > Speech > Stop Speaking to end it immediately.

Mac Malware Sighting

Computer security company Trend Micro is reporting that a new Mac OS X malware application is making the rounds. The application, called OSX_LAMZEV.A, gives hackers a way to take control of infected Macs. This is the second report of Mac OS X malware this week.

This is not a virus, and users must actually launch the app for it to install its payload. Once running, the app also asks which firewall port it can use. Trend Micro reports that “Mac users may be infected when they access remote websites hosting this backdoor. The backdoor may also be disguised as a legitimate application and may be installed and executed on systems.”

Full Article:

Create the best presentation you’ve ever seen with Apple’s Keynote

Apple’s Keynote “kicks the ass of Powerpoint out of the pond. And it kicks it so hard, that Powerpoint will never be able to swim in that pond again,” Milind Alvares reports for Smoking Apples.

“Keynote is the most amazing presentation tool out there. Within minutes, you can create smooth presentations that will bring out that real ‘Wow’ (not the pathetic one Microsoft talked about with Vista). Already up at version 4, Keynote has matured, and has some great features like instant alphas, transitions and templates that are guaranteed to make people just stare at your presentations,” Alvares reports.

“You should note that I failed my computer practicals in college (topic was Microsoft Office) mainly cause I couldn’t make a good enough Powerpoint presentation. But within 10 minutes I had figured out how to work Keynote and made a stunning presentation my dad, then used on one of his talks. It has been three years since and he swears by Keynote presentations,” Alvares reports. “As you can see, so do I.”

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“Free” Apple Laptop Recovery Solution Available

This is the first Open Source system for tracking the location of your lost or stolen laptop (Mac, Linux and Windows) that does not rely on a proprietary, central service. This means that you can install Adeona on your laptop and go – there’s no need to rely on a single third party. What’s more, Adeona addresses a critical privacy goal different from existing commercial offerings. It is privacy-preserving. This means that no one besides the owner (or an agent of the owner’s choosing) can use Adeona to track a laptop.

Adeona is designed to use the Open Source OpenDHT distributed storage service to store location updates sent by a small software client installed on an owner’s laptop. The client continually monitors the current location of the laptop, gathering information (such as IP addresses and local network topology) that can be used to identify its current location. The client then uses strong cryptographic mechanisms to not only encrypt the location data, but also ensure that the ciphertexts stored within OpenDHT are anonymous and unlinkable. At the same time, it is easy for an owner to retrieve location information.

The Mac OS X version also has an option to capture pictures of the laptop user or thief using the built-in iSight camera and the freeware tool isightcapture.

NY Post raises Steve Jobs health scare

The New York Post has set out more concern this morning at the health of Apple CEO Steve Jobs.  Market manipulation?  You be the judge.  Apple’s stock is significantly down on the news.

Apple will reveal its quarterly results during a conference call this afternoon at 2pm (PDT), but, according to the report, people meeting him in recent weeks appear concerned at his “thin appearance”. “Apple’s hedge fund investors are very worried,” a Wall Street source who has spoken with some of the company’s stakeholders told the newspaper.

Concerns at the health of the Apple co-founder emerged last month after a thinner-looking Jobs took to the stage at WWDC to introduce the iPhone 3G. Responding to these concerns, Apple later said Jobs had been suffering from a “common bug”, from which he was expected to make a full recovery, blaming his weight loss on the antibiotics he had to take.