Handy Apple mac tips!

From Evernote:

Apple - Pro - Tips - Searching by Color Label

Clipped from: http://www.apple.com/pro/tips/colorlabel.html

Tip of the Week

Searching by Color Label

Besides the visual benefits of having certain files tagged with a Color label, there’s a hidden benefit: You can search for files by their color. For example, let’s say you misplaced an important file for a project you were working on. You can press Command-F to bring up the Find function, and from the top-left pop-up menu, choose Color Label.

Then, click on the color for the files you labeled in that project, and it will instantly find and display all the files with that color. Searching by color—only Apple is cool enough to come up with a search like this!

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Apple - Pro - Tips - The Immaculate Desktop

Source URL: http://www.apple.com/pro/tips/immaculate_desktop.html

Tip of the Week

The Immaculate Desktop

Are you the sort of neat-freak who abhors Desktop clutter? Who keeps all apps and docs in carefully organized folders? Consider diving deeper into onscreen clean by making your mounted drives and discs disappear from the Desktop and accessing them instead via Finder windows.

Here’s how to try it: From the Finder, pull down the Finder menu and select Preferences — or just press Command-comma [⌘ ,] from within the Finder. Click the General tab and uncheck Hard disks; CDs, DVDs, and iPods; and Connected servers.

Next, click the Sidebar tab and check the boxes next to all the items you unchecked under the General tab.

When you want to access a drive, disk, or server, just open a Finder window by pressing Command-n [⌘ n] from within the Finder. And when you close the Finder windows, your desktop will be spotless. (Remember, Command-w [⌘ w] closes a Finder window, and Command-Option-w [⌘ ⌥ w] closes all Finder windows at once.

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Apple - Pro - Tips - Speed Navigating in Save As, Part 2

Source URL: http://www.apple.com/pro/tips/speed_navigating2.html

Tip of the Week

Speed Navigating in Save As, Part 2

Want to speed things up by using the keyboard to get around in the Save As dialog? There’s just one thing you have to do first — press the Tab key. That removes the highlighting from the Save As naming field, and changes the focus on the sidebar (notice the blue highlight rectangle around the sidebar shown here). Once the sidebar is highlighted, you can use the Up/Down Arrow keys to move up and down the sidebar. Press Tab again and the search field is active. Press Tab once more and the Column (or list) view is highlighted, and you can use the Arrow keys on your keyboard to quickly get right where you want to be. When you get there, press the Tab key again to highlight the Save As field so you can name your file, and then hit the Return key to “make it so!”

Note: if you don’t see the sidebar or viewing modes, click on the little blue down-facing arrow button to the right of the Save As field.

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Apple - Pro - Tips - Summarize Your Stories

Source URL: http://www.apple.com/pro/tips/summarize.html

Tip of the Week

Summarize Your Stories

When laying out a long story in a newsletter or magazine, it’s often helpful to summarize a story, or a section of a story in a pull-quote or abstract. But how to find the best quote when you’re on a deadline and need it fast? Fortunately, Mac OS X offers a great tool that almost no one knows about: Summary Service.

To find this utility, select some text in Adobe InDesign or some other program that supports this Mac OS X Service (such as TextEdit) and choose Summarize from Services under the Application menu. You can adjust how long you want your summary (in number of sentences or paragraphs) in the Summary dialog box. Drag the Summary Size slider to the left to get a more focused summary; for a pull-quote a one- or two-sentence summary is best.

You wouldn’t expect a computer to be able to analyze some text and provide a good summary but Summary Service is surprisingly good. Try it!

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Drag the Summary slider to the left to get a more condensed version of your selected text.

Apple - Pro - Tips - Adding Automation Through Folder Actions

Source URL: http://www.apple.com/pro/tips/folderactions.html

Adding Automation Through Folder Actions

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At the office, I’m on a network and I have a Drop Box where my co-workers (freaks that they are) can send me files. However, for a long time, if a freak put something in my Drop Box, I wouldn’t know it unless they called or emailed me and told me so. But now anytime one of them drops something in my Drop Box, a message dialog appears that says, “Something freaky is in your Drop Box.” This is a simple AppleScript (think of an AppleScript as a built-in automation for your Mac, just like Photoshop actions add automation to Adobe Photoshop). Mac OS X includes some cool sample scripts (actions), or you can download about a bazillion from the Web for free.

To assign a script to a folder, Control-click on that folder and choose Configure Folder Actions from the contextual menu that appears. This brings up the Folder Actions Setup dialog, where you toggle various scripts assigned to folders on and off, or even edit scripts (if you know how to write AppleScripts). Click the plus sign (+) button at the bottom left of the dialog to add your folder to the list (this actually brings up a standard Open dialog showing your folder, so click on your folder in the dialog and click Open). Once you do this, a window will pop down with a list of built-in sample scripts you can assign to this folder, and their names give a cryptic description of what they do. Pick the one that sounds like what you want to do (to replicate my Drop Box warning, choose “add — new item alert .scpt”) and click the Attach button (you’ll see your newly assigned script appear in the column on the right of the dialog). Now click the Enable Folder Actions checkbox at the top-left corner of the dialog.This is a global on/off switch, so any folder to which you’ve attached scripts is now “activated.”

By the way, once you’ve applied actions to a folder, you can turn Folder Actions on or off globally by Control-clicking on any folder and choosing Enable Folder Actions or Disable Folder Actions from the contextual menu.

Apple - Pro - Tips - Create Your Own Keyboard Shortcuts

Source URL: http://www.apple.com/pro/tips/keyboard.html

Tip of the Week

Create Your Own Keyboard Shortcuts

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Keyboard shortcuts are such huge timesavers, but sadly, not all Finder commands have them. But they can, because you can create your own. Here’s how: Go under the Apple menu, to System Preferences, and choose Keyboard & Mouse. When the dialog appears, click on the Keyboard Shortcuts tab, then click the plus (+) sign at the bottom left of the dialog. Another dialog will appear. Choose Finder from the Application pop-up menu, and then type the exact name of the menu command you want to add a shortcut for. Now type the shortcut you want to use and click the Add button. It’s that simple.

Apple - Pro - Tips - Emailing Web Pages

Source URL: http://www.apple.com/pro/tips/emailwebpage.html

Tip of the Week

Emailing Web Pages

If you run across a web page you want to share with a friend, don’t send her a link to it — send her the page itself. Just press Command-I and a dialog will appear, asking for the email address of the person you want to send this web page to. Just enter her email address, along with your text message, and click send, and it will send the contents of that page (complete with graphics, formatting, links, etc.) to your friend. She’ll be able to see that page right within her email application.

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Apple - Pro - Tips - Can’t Remember the Password?

Source URL: http://www.apple.com/pro/tips/password.html

Tip of the Week

Can’t Remember the Password?

If you can’t remember a password for a website (or anything else for that matter), all your passwords are saved in the Keychain Access utility (which probably isn’t news to you), but the cool thing is you can do a Spotlight search from right within Keychain to quickly find the password you’re looking for.

Start by looking inside your Applications folder for the Utilities folder, and inside of that double-click on Keychain Access. When it opens you’ll see a search field in the upper-right corner. Type the name of the site you’re looking for, and it will appear. Double-click on the result and an info dialog will appear, and to see your password, turn on the show Password checkbox.

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Apple - Pro - Tips - Finding the Combined Size of More than One Document

Source URL: http://www.apple.com/pro/tips/combined_size.html

Tip of the Week

Finding the Combined Size of More than One Document

Let’s say you have several files on your desktop, and before you copy them all onto your jump drive, you want to find out their combined size. Here’s how it’s done: Select all the files for which you want the combined size, then press Command-Option-I, which brings up the Multiple Item Info dialog, complete with a list of how many files are selected and their combined size.

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Apple - Pro - Tips - Annotating PDFs in Preview

Source URL: http://www.apple.com/pro/tips/pdf_annotation.html

ip of the Week

Annotating PDFs in Preview

Annotating PDFs in Preview

You may already know that Preview is a terrific application for viewing PDF files. But did you realize it’s also great for annotating PDFs? It’s a fast and efficient way to share comments when collaborating on group projects.

Under Preview’s Tools menu, you’ll find the options Mark Up and Annotate. Mark Up lets you highlight, strike through, or underline selected text within a PDF. Annotate allows you to draw circles and rectangles around parts of a PDF, append Stickies-style notes, and add hyperlinks.

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To use Mark Up, choose the Text tool from Preview’s Toolbar. Select your target text with the cursor, and then choose a Mark Up option from the Tools menu (the choices are Highlight Text, Strike Through Text, and Underline Text).

To add shapes, links or comments, select a command from the Tools menu’s Annotate list (the options are Add Oval, Add Rectangle, Add Note, and Add Link).

If you’ve selected Add Note, simply click anywhere on the PDF. A colored tag appears in the left margin alongside the spot where you clicked. Its default text consists of your user name and the date, though you can alter or add to this by double-clicking on the note. To move notes, double-click their icons (those little cartoon-style balloons) and then drag them. When you double-click a note icon, you can also specify the note’s color and other attributes. To remove a note, double-click its icon and press Delete.

All Mark Up and Annotate tools can be summoned via key command. Also, if you use these tools frequently, you may want to add them to Preview’s Toolbar. (By default, they are not shown.) To add them, select the View menu’s Customize Toolbar command, then drag the tools you want from the pop-up onto the Toolbar.

Apple - Pro - Tips - Seeing a Photo’s EXIF Metadata

Source URL: http://www.apple.com/pro/tips/exif.html

Tip of the Week

Seeing a Photo’s EXIF Metadata

When you take a photo with a digital camera, a boatload of background information is embedded into the file (called EXIF metadata), including when the photo was taken, the make and model of the digital camera, the exposure, shutter speed, lens focal length, whether the flash fired, and a host of other related info. Believe it or not, Preview can display all this EXIF metadata — you just have to know where to look. To see the EXIF data for the current image, just press Command-I, then click on the Details tab, and if you scroll down a bit, you’ll see a header for EXIF Properties, along with the full scoop on your image.

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Apple - Pro - Tips - Become the Ultimate Menu Master

Source URL: http://www.apple.com/pro/tips/menu_master.html

Tip of the Week

Become the Ultimate Menu Master

Want to really speed things up? How about jumping right to the Apple menu without even clicking the mouse? Just press Control-F2, press Return, and the Apple menu pops down (if you’re using a MacBook, press Function-Control-F2). Oh, but there’s more! Now that you’re in the Apple menu, press the Right Arrow key on your keyboard to move to the other menus (Finder, File, Edit, View, etc.) and the Left Arrow to move back.

Once you get to the menu you want, press Return, then type the first letter of the command you want in the menu and it jumps right there. Now press Return again to choose that command (and you did it all without ever touching the mouse).

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Apple - Pro - Tips - The One-Click Trick to Moving the Dock

Source URL: http://www.apple.com/pro/tips/movedock.html

Tip of the Week

The One-Click Trick to Moving the Dock

Okay, so you’re working in a program like Final Cut Pro or iMovie, which takes up every vertical inch of the screen, and when you go to adjust something near the bottom, the Dock keeps popping up. Oh sure, you could move the Dock to where it’s anchored on the left or right side of the screen, but that just feels weird. But what if you could move it temporarily to the left or right, and then get it back to the bottom when you close Final Cut Pro, in just one click?

Here’s how: Hold the shift key, click directly on the Dock’s divider line (on the far right side of the Dock), and drag the Dock to the left or right side of your screen. Bam! It moves over to the side. Then, once you quit Final Cut Pro, just shift-click on that divider line and slam it back to the bottom (okay, drag it back to the bottom). A draggable Dock — is that cool or what!

Apple - Pro - Tips - Create Your Own Icons

Source URL: http://www.apple.com/pro/tips/create_icons.html

Tip of the Week

Create Your Own Icons

You don’t have to live with the icons your Mac displays by default. Instead, personalize your folders, files, and drives with custom icons using just about any graphic file you desire, whether it’s a jpeg, gif, png, Photoshop or Illustrator file, or even a PDF.

First, choose an image you want to use and open it in Preview. If the file doesn’t open in Preview by default, select the image in Finder, select Open With from the File menu and then select Preview from the drop-down list.

Once your image has opened in Preview, press Command-C to copy it.

Next, select the file, folder or drive whose icon you want to change, and press Command-I to show its Info window.

Click the file, folder, or drive icon at the top left corner of the Info screen, then press Command-V to replace this icon with your chosen image.

Close the Info window. The new image should appear in place of the old icon on your desktop or Finder window — even in List view.

To make your icons appear larger or smaller, go to the Finder and select View Options from the View menu. Use the slider in the pop-up window to change your icons’ display size on the desktop or in Finder windows.

You can also copy icons from the Info window of one file, folder, or drive to another. Just select the desired icon, copy it, then select the icon you want to replace and paste. Want to revert to the default Mac icon? Select your custom icon in the Info window and press the Delete key.

More Icon Tips: The most successful icons are clear, small images without too much detail, like a close-up photo of a face or a flower. You may want to crop an existing image down to a single detail in an image-editing program to create a better-looking icon — or use one of the thousands of purpose-made icons available in various online collections.

Keep in mind that using a large image as an icon increases the file size of your destination folder or file. For example, using a 3.4 MB photo as an icon for a 36 KB document increases that document’s total file size to 92 KB. Try creating a lower-resolution or smaller version of your image instead.

Next Tip: Opening Moves

Apple - Pro - Tips - Setting High-Quality Fractions

Source URL: http://www.apple.com/pro/tips/fractions.html

ip of the Week

Setting High-Quality Fractions

When was the last time you saw a cookbook specify .125 teaspoons of salt? No, in virtually all non-metric publications, this would be written 1/8 tsp. That’s not so bad on a web page, but in print, regular-sized numbers separated by a slash looks clunky and unprofessional. Instead, you should use true fractions, such as ½ and ¼. But how do you get these special characters?

Most fonts contain two or three few special fraction characters, and both InDesign and QuarkXPress 7 offer a Glyph palette that lets you find them by searching through all the characters in the font. You can also use the hidden Character Palette to find these characters in other programs.

But the easiest and best way to get professional-looking fractions is to use OpenType fonts that enable intelligent fractions. When you’re using this kind of font, and you’re using an OpenType-aware application (such as Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress 7) you can select a regular fraction in your text and choose Fractions from the OpenType menu. (In InDesign, this menu is in the Control panel or Character panel flyout menu. In QuarkXPress, it’s in the Character Attributes tab of the Measurements palette.)

In general, it’s not a good idea to turn on Fractions for a large range of text—you should only apply it to true fractions. The reason: Turning this on can occasionally cause other numbers and some punctuation in your text to shift from its baseline.

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Converting a regular fraction is as easy as choosing from a menu, as long as you have an OpenType font that supports this kind of substitution. Note that the regular slash is also automatically converted to a fraction virgule

Apple - Pro - Tips - The Secret Screen Capture Shortcut

Source URL: http://www.apple.com/pro/tips/secretcapture.html

The Secret Screen Capture Shortcut

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Okay, you probably already know the ol’ Command-Shift-3 shortcut for taking a screen capture of your entire screen, and you may even know about Command-Shift-4, which gives you a crosshair cursor so you can choose which area of the screen you want to capture. But perhaps the coolest, most-secret hidden capture shortcut is Control-Command-Shift-3 (or 4), which, instead of creating a file on your desktop, copies the capture into your Clipboard memory, so you can paste it where you want. (I use this to paste screen captures right into Photoshop.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Furniture I covet

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Actual Gardening lessons in London

Where you can learn to garden in London ? A few years ago there were
hardly any courses to do (unless you were studying gardening properly
at a college). But now, thankfully they are proliferating.. slowly
though.

Here's my synopsis of where you can get a gardening lesson:

City Leaf Ltd, 14 York Rise, London NW5 1ST 020 7485 9262
Holds them in Regent's Park.
Not enough and always seem to be sold out
Linked to Capital Growth and Sustain Web

extortionately expensive French shabby chic furniture

19th century grey painted 4-door cupboard from Appley Hoare in Pimlico...
and while we're about it, see Appley Hoare's lovely house in France on
http://www.appleyhoare.com/stockcatalogue.asp

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Station Mill Antiques Centre

Check out this website I found at stationmill.com

Don't tell anyone about this place, but I think you can get some really great bargains here... and also Annie Sloan paints - which, when the rest of the world has run out of titanium dioxide (main ingredient of paint), is very useful to know!

Amazing dairy-free milk

Hurray! I’ve finally discovered a non-dairy milk I actually like the taste of!

Kara Coconut milk – it’s drinking milk, not the coconut milk you’d use
for Thai curries. And, it’s better than soya and rice milk as it’s
even healthier. It only got released on the market recently – it’s
cholesterol and lactose free, and contains the richest source of
Lauric Acid of any kind of milk. Lauric Acid is a medium chain fatty
acid, which is healthier than saturated animal fats and also helps
control cholesterol.

http://karadairyfree.com/

Coconut milk is from the coconut flesh, not the same as the coconut
water, which sits in the middle of the fruit, which is also full of
electrolytes – a natural isotonic beverage. (see other posts)

http://www.talkingretail.com/products/product-news/14219-kara-dairy-free-the-...