MacHeads - the movie
October 3, 2008
Mac users are a passionate bunch. Someone thought them to be a good subject for a documentary. Below is the trailer. I haven't seen a release date yet. Link to the website. When will you make your pilgrimage to Macca?
Screen Captures
October 1, 2008So how does one get pictures of what appears on your computer screen? Several applications will do that for you. One is built into Mac OS X - it is called Grab and you will find it in your Utilities folder (Applications>Utilities>Grab). While Grab works well, many people have thought they could improve on the user interface and make an easier to operate screen capture application. I like the one called SnapNDrag. I find it to be more intuitive and to have fewer steps than other screen capture apps.
This is the user interface. It is quite simple. You click on the button for the operation you desire - Selection allows you to define a specific area of your screen by draging a rectangle; Window will capture a complete window; Screen will capture the entire screen; Timed will allow you a few seconds to do something before the image is snapped. Below is a screen capture of a Selection.
The grey area has been selected by draging a rectangle. When you release the mouse click, the image will be snapped and a thumbnail image will appear in the drop frame of the user interface. Now you simply drag the thumbnail to where ever you want to put it - into an email, onto your desktop, into a document, into a folder.
SnapNDrag is the creation of Yellow Mug Software, who also make some other very nice applications. (I have often wished that all software was designed as well as Yellow Mug software.) The developer says: "SnapNDrag is freeware. It is our way of giving back to the Mac community, and getting our name out at the same time." It also comes in a Pro version for a small fee.
Emailing web pages
September 29, 2008Have you ever found a website that you want to tell a friend about? It is easy - really easy - to send an email from Safari 3. You have two options: send a link, or send the whole page. From the Safari menu bar select File>Mail Contents of This Page (Command/I - the Command key is the Apple key) or File>Mail Link to This Page (Command/Shift/I). Mail will open, then enter your friend's email address and click send. Pretty easy - pretty cool.
More folder fun
September 27, 2008It's nice to have a beautiful image on your desktop. Did you know that you could have a beautiful image inside each folder? (This trick only works in Icon view.)
Open a folder and select View>Show View Options (or press Command/J). A panel will open.
At the bottom, choose Picture and select the image you wish to use. (Alternatively, you can select a solid color. Double-click the color square that appears next to Color and pick your color from the color picker.)
The background photo will display full size. Tiny images will not fill the entire Finder window and you will only see a portion of large images. You can resize the photo using Preview (I explained how to do this in the previous entry: Custom icons for your folders).
Many photos are too dark to use as a background. Notice that the file names are difficult to read with the above background. Using Preview you can make a brighness adjustment to lighten the image. Double click the image file to open it in Preview. Select Tools>Adjust Color (in Tiger OS X 10.4, this will be Tools>Image Correction). Using the Brightness slider on the inspector panel, lighten the image. Select File>Save As... to save the changes. (If you use File>Save or Command/S the original file will be overwritten and forever lost. It is always a good idea to make a duplicate - Command/D - of your original photograph and make alterations to the copy.)
That makes it easier to read the file names! If you want to return to the white background, open the View>Show View Options panel and click the button for White background.
Custom icons for your folders
September 26, 2008Almost every folder icon is identical. It can be very helpful to have frequently used folders identified with a unique icon. Here's how:
Find an image you would like to use and double click it to open it in Preview. (If it will not open in Preview, Control click or right click and select Open With....Preview.) It is best to keep icon images small, so we will resize our image to 128 pixels in its largest dimension. Do this by selecting Tools>Adjust Size...
Change the largest dimension to 128 pixels (or even smaller) and check the box next to Scale proportionally. Click OK. The image should now be very small. Be careful not to overwrite the file or you will permanently loose your original image. Instead, select File>Save As...
Rename the image and select a location to store it. Click Save. Press Command/C (Apple key/C). If you forget to press Command/C, what follows will not work.
Locate the folder you wish to give a new icon. Click it once to highlight it, then bring up the information panel using Command/I. Click on the small icon at the top of the information panel. It should have a blue glow around the edges. Press Command/V and the new icon should appear in the information panel and it should have replaced the folder icon in the finder window. That's it, you're done.
See the Archive for previous entries.
Got a question about your Mac? I don't know everything, but I'll help if I can.
Look for a link to this website in the navigation menu of Coquina Daily.
There may not be something new here everyday, but I am going to try to have something new at least three times per week. As always, you are welcome to make submissions.