UsingMac.com
Mac Tricks and Tips, Wallpapers and Applications for Mac Users
QuickLook: Peek Inside Files
Firstly, thanks to Hong Kiat, he recommend me this tip. Let me share a bit about QuickLook plugins for your finder extensibility. I believe most of us have already known that there are many useful QuickLook plugins out there. And according to me, these three QuickLook plugins are used the most :
Folder List
With this plugin, you can see what's inside a folder, reveal hidden items and even the exact time of the items' creation and modification can be shown.
Preview Tutorial - Reading PDF Files
Brief Introduction
Somehow I feel it's quite difficult to read through many pages of PDF using my small display of MacBook. Fortunately, I come out with several ideas to improve the readability of reading PDF files with Preview which is our Mac default application to view PDF files.
Setting Default Application
Perhaps you haven't set up your default opening application for PDF file to Preview, you can do the following steps :
- Highlight one of your collection of PDF Files
- Right click on it to show up the contextual menu
- Mouse over on
Open Withwith modifier keys Option pressed. You should notice that the name is now changed to Always Open With - Choose and Click on Preview
- Now, you've done setting up Preview as your default opening PDF Files as well as opening that highlighted file with Preview
Calculator - Programmers' Best Friend
Have you experienced yourself trying really hard to convert from hexadecimal to binary, or other common base for programming purpose? You won't experience that issue again after mastering Programmer Calculator.
Change View - Programmer Calculator
As its name, this calculator is designed for programmers with many logical operations and functions embedded, such as AND, OR, XOR, etc. To open the Programmer Calculator, you need to open your calculator and then go to Apple ▸ View ▸ Programmer (keystrokes: Command-3.
Multi-Touch Mac
MacBook Air got multi-touch trackpad as well as new release of MacBook Pro. What are those kinds of touch?
Apple Official Website
Go to the official website and look inside MacBook Pro section; Scrolling down a bit, you will see small title Multi-Touch meets MacBook Pro. Clicking on the image, you will be brought to brief illustration of all of those available trackpad Gestures.
MacBook - Trackpad Adjustments
Trackpad plays the most important role on using MacBook, especially when mouse isn't present. How to adjust Trackpad behavior?
Note : It's obvious that reading this article won't be useful for those Macs without trackpad. And, I'm not discussing MacBook Air's smart trackpad here.
Trackpad Preferences Pane
It's really easy to find this pane. These simple steps will do.
- Go inside Apple ▸ System Preferences…
- Click on
Keyboard & Mouseunder Hardware section - You will see 4-5 tabs inside, i.e. Keyboard, Trackpad, Mouse, Bluetooth, and Keyboard Shortcuts. Choose
Trackpad - Now, you're already inside Trackpad Preferences Pane
Preview Tutorial - Extract Shape
With Preview alone, you can do the most basic image editing, such as Extract Shape.
Pick Your Image
If your image is in the form image type file, i.e. JPEG, GIF, PNG, etc, you can highlight the file and then choose Open With ▸ Preview (if Preview hasn't been set as your default application) or simply use Command-A.
However, if you want to pick your image from existing Application's icon, you can do these steps :
- Highlight the icon
- Copying it into clipboard (Command-C)
- Open Preview
- Select File ▸ New From Clipboard (Command-N)
I picked : MacBook Air which I just captured from Apple.
Leopard - Quick Look vs. Slideshow
Quick Look and Slideshow, which complement each other, are masterpieces of Leopard.
Quick Look, which cannot be opened at the same time with Slideshow, is known to be the simplified version of Slideshow. Though so, Slideshow in Leopard, that comes with better resolution, should not be completely buried under the trees. In this article, I will discuss some of the techniques to open your Leopard Quick Look and your Slideshow, that is hidden under Quick Look, at ease.
Toolbar
As I've just said, Slideshow is well hidden under the Quick Look. Hovering your mouse long enough on top of the eye icon, which is the button for activating Quick Look, would definitely unveil the fact that Slideshow is the alternate version of Quick Look. Therefore, holding modifier key Option change the tool icon from an eye into our familiar Slideshow button.
Leopard Take A Look - Dock
I'm glad to see that our Leopard Dock got a new look.
The Old and The New
Let's recall what our old Tiger Dock looks like..
Grab - Perfectly Capture Application Switcher
Feel it. Grab it. Love it.
You can find Grab inside Macintosh HD → Applications → Utilities → Grab. And then follow these steps :
Digging into Files with Dock
Using Dock will substitute Finder function to go to specified address.
There are a separating line on your Dock. This line separate Dock into two parts. the left part (or top part) is for launching Applications while the other part is for opening items. Now, we will make use of this second part, i.e. the right part (or bottom part).
Using Services on Mac
Services create a bridge for Applications.
Function of Services
With Services, you can quickly draw the power of other Application even though you're not within that other Application. For example, you can take snapshot while using TextEdit.
Some Services
Several Services are available, and until now, still developing. Some examples of Services:
- Grab
- Dictionary
- Quicksilver
- Sticky Note
- Open URL
- Google Search
Using Activity Monitor
Activity Monitor helps me manage my applications. Let me guide you in a very simple manner on how to use Activity Monitor?
Mac Utility, Grapher
What is this? You tell me to make a graph?
Mac Grapher
This utility give you the freedom to expand your creativity in graph. Mac can generate a 2D or even 3D, with the only requirement you provide them with valid math equation. Even though the wind is blowing on mathematicians, you still feel the coolness of the air.
Living Inside Utility
Grapher lives inside folder named Utilities. The full path of Mac Grapher is Macintosh HD/Applications/Utilities. It won't be so difficult to be found because it sits inside the same folder as well-known Mac utility, Terminal.
Digg is Inside Menu Bar
Is it useful? What are the features it has?
I'm very lucky to know this utility, DiggUpdate. With this, I can easily follow up newest popular stories without having many distractions to my work. DiggUpdate also has many other useful features.
DiggUpdate can display front page stories and friend stories as many as 15 stories. Also, we can set the update time of these stories, under Refresh time text field.
Mac Dashboard Recovery
It seems that my dashboard just crashed. But don't worry, I believe I can handle this.
Terminal will be a great help..
to solve this problem. Two lines of codes typed in Terminal will successfully recover your dashboard.
Menu Bar Feature on My Mac
Recently, I get addicted to enhance my menu bar. It's very fun, very challenging as you've to browse across the web to find the coolest feature for menu bar and at last show off to your friends (especially to those who are not using Mac).
I successfully attach features to my menu bar that change it from no brainer to cool, fantastic menu bar.
Let me explain a bit of my sophisticated menu bar.
Jing
Jing simply makes me fall in love as it can not only take snapshot but also record into flash video. However, the flash video size will be very high due to high resolution used (and hence, it's not suitable for blog posting).
Adium
This is my most favorite instant messenger compare with others. Adium has accompanied me since my first touch on Mac.
DiggUpdate
Everyone should have known Digg. However, not many people know that we can monitor every update inside Digg popular stories via Mac menu bar, i.e. DiggUpdate.
Fans, Temps, Network, Disks, Memory and CPU
All of these are provided by iStat Menus. They monitor the overall activity of our Mac.
Menu Calendar
This smart, tiny MenuCalendar is able to help us do a lot of things. MenuCalendar will automatically sync with your iCal once it's installed to your Mac.
And the rest..
are already attached into Mac package. They can be enabled from System Preference Pane.
So, how powerful are your menu bar?
Feel free to drop your masterpiece.
Set Startup Item(s) for Mac
Each time your Mac started, you will notice that some applications are already running without your further command, everyone calls it Startup Item(s). Even though this can save your time to open your application, don't overdo it or your Mac will be slowed down; because these startup applications also need memory to run.
I always have my Mac run these applications, Adium, Firefox, TextEdit, Quicksilver and Jing, manually the first time I see my Mac's face. Next time I will have my Mac run them automatically on startup.
AppFresh, Application Update Checker
Confession..
When reading through Cool OS X Apps, I found out this application named AppFresh. This application is created to check your Mac latest applications update available or not. Accepting that I rarely check for latest update of my applications, I download this application, for the sake of my Mac health.
After extracting, running AppFresh and it's checking for the my Mac Applications' updates
Make Mac Backup
There are two Applications here I can recommend you to do backup for your Mac, one is Carbon Copy Cloner 3.0 and the other one is SuperDuper!
Backup? For Mac? Why?
We all know that Mac is far more secure than 'you-know-what-I-mean'. However, in this world nothing is perfect, including your Mac. Somehow, sometimes, somewhere or somewhat, your Mac will get a glitch of error and mess up all of your data storage. Instead of crying over the night (under the blanket), it's just more than good to do backup. But it's essential yet not compulsory.
Carbon Copy Cloner
Also known as CCC. Choose this one if you want to make backup of only some portions of your Disk. It also gives us the forecast what should we get if we proceed further.
For further understanding and sea of feedbacks from it's experienced user, you can refer to its site: Carbon Copy Cloner 3.0 and Mac
Schedule Start Up and Shutdown for Mac
As you see, this article title is focusing on scheduling, that's mean both of the tasks, i.e. Start Up and Shutdown, are done automatically by your Mac. What a save of energy.
What on earth? Why you've to set up your Mac?
I'm not forcing you to set up according to my opinion. I just want to let you know how this work on your Mac and what is the advantage and disadvantage.
This feature gives you advantages: time saving as you don't have to wait for start up time and energy saving as your Mac will shut down automatically even if you've gone to the dream world. Of course there is disadvantage: sometimes annoying: as it doesn't care whether you're using the computer or not, i.e. when you're in a rush for working deadline, suddenly your Mac automatically shutdown, what a nightmare..
Frankly say, that's just my opinion, if you've another point of view, feel free to reach me.