Synching iCal with Google Calendar

Posted on July 28th, 2008 in 3rd Party Applications, Website Tagged with:
by admin
Previously you could subscribe to a Google calendar but not sync with it from iCal the built in calendar program that comes with MacOS. That meant that you could only edit the calendar on Google but see the events both in Google and in iCal on your Mac. Now, with syncing you can make the [...]

Fixing iTunes when it freezes

Posted on July 26th, 2008 in Built-in Applications Tagged with:
by admin
I recently ran into a problem with my iTunes where every time I would start it, almost immediately it would freeze: that is, I could see all my music, it was trying to download new podcasts, and the spinning rainbow wheel came up and wouldn’t go away. Going to Force Quit showed iTunes not responding. After [...]

Creating Applications from Web Pages

Posted on July 23rd, 2008 in 3rd Party Applications Tagged with:
by admin
Fluid is a very interesting application that will take any web page and make into a regular Mac application that lives in the Application folder and can go in the Dock. And it is free. After downloading and installing Fluid, run it and you will see the following window: Copy and paste (or type) the URL/web address [...]

Where is it?

Posted on July 22nd, 2008 in Basic OS Functionality Tagged with: , ,
by admin
You’re used to finding things in certain places on your machine but on a Mac the places are different. Here’s some help finding things. I’m going to go down the list on the left side of Windows Explorer and point out where you’ll find things in the Mac Finder. Desktop: hurray it’s the same name in [...]

iMovie

Posted on July 20th, 2008 in Built-in Applications Tagged with:
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iMovie comes with all Macs as part of the iLife package. One of the advantages of the Mac is the high quality applications that come with it. iMovie is a very slick, easy to use, way of assembling movies from video clips. I don’t do much video editing but I checked out the program to see [...]

Adding Special Characters

Posted on July 12th, 2008 in Basic OS Functionality Tagged with: ,
by admin
In Windows you can bring up the Character Map application to select and insert special characters into documents. In MacOS there is similar functionality and I think it is easier to use. Under the Edit menu in the menu bar in most (all?) applications at the bottom is the Special Characters… command. Select it and the [...]

Menu Bar Applications

Posted on July 10th, 2008 in 3rd Party Applications by admin
One advantage of having just one menu bar on your machine (instead of one per window like in Windows) is that you can embed some small programs there that are always visible and available. The Mac Tricks and Tips website has published a list of 45 Must Have Menu Bar Applications. I would advise you not [...]

More guides for switchers

Posted on July 4th, 2008 in Basic OS Functionality, Website Tagged with:
by admin
Walt Mossbery is one of the top tech columnists. He just published some general tips for switchers. These are pretty basic but good if you are a brand new switcher. He points out a couple of basic Apple web pages that are very useful. These are Mac101 and Switch101. These provide a lot of tips on [...]