iPhoto: Cropping Pictures for Printing

If you plan to print or order prints of your favorite photos, remember to first crop them to the desired size. Otherwise, the photo lab will crop them for you and you may be disappointed with the results.

To crop a picture in iPhoto:

1. In iPhoto, click once on the photo and click Edit from the toolbar at the bottom

2. Click on the crop tool

3. From the pull-down list of numbers, choose the size of the print you will be ordering. A rectangular box will appear on the photo.

4. Drag the corners to resize the rectangle to include what you want in the photo. You’ll notice that if you make it narrower it will also make it shorter–it is constraining the photo to the proportions of the size you selected.

5. You can reposition the rectangle by dragging in the middle of the rectangle.

6. You can also change it from a landscape to a portrait by choosing again from the size list–the last choices in the menu give you the option to make it tall (portrait) or wide (landscape).

7. When you have the desired area selected, click Done.

Now you have a proper photo of the desired size.

If you are ordering several different sizes of the same photo, duplicate the photo first (photos menu, choose duplicate) and crop each one to the desired size.

FOR MORE GREAT iPHOTO TIPS, check out the videos in The Virtual Classroom at http://www.mac2school.com/virtual-classroom-library/

iPad and iPhone Tip of the Month

Turning To-Do’s Into Ta Dones

The free App, I DONE THIS gets five stars when it comes to writing stuff down and staying motivated, whatever you do. You just tap the icon of the cute dog face and write about everything you got done that day.

It’s not another TO DO list that might leave you feeling overwhelmed or unaccomplished. I DONE THIS is all about recognizing what you HAVE done. You can scroll through all of the entries and feel a sense of big accomplishment.

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Quicken vs Quicken Essentials

You’ve probably heard that Intuit finally released a version of Quicken that will work with Lion. Even if you’ve already converted to Quicken Essentials, you can still switch back to the new Quicken.

Why would you want to?

~ Quicken 2007 has much more complete reporting capabilities.

~ Quicken 2007 includes automatic backups of your important data.

~ Quicken 2007 allows you to pay your bills right from within the program.

~ Quicken 2007 tracks investments and securities.

And more.

Here’s the link to download the newest Lion compatible version.

http://quicken.intuit.com/personal-finance-software/quicken-2007-osx-lion.jsp

Be sure to read the conversion information too. Or call me and I’ll help you.

iPad and iPhone Tip of the Month

Emailing More Than One Photo At a Time

To send more than one picture in an email:

1. Tap Photos

2. Don’t select a picture! Instead, tap the Share icon, the rectangle with the arrow in the top right corner

3. Now select your photos

4. Tap Share

5. Choose Email

You can also use this technique to Delete several photos at a time.

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Scroll Bar Secrets

The scroll bar, on the right side of every window, allows you to move up and down the window to see the contents.
Dragging the scroll bar moves you fast, sometimes too fast. But Dragging the scroll button is the quickest way to go all the way to the top or bottom of a window.

Clicking the up and down arrows at the bottom of the scroll bar will move you a line at a time. This is great if you are reading a document line by line or looking at individual photos.

In the System Preferences, under Appearance, you can set the Scroll Bar to either jump to the next page or to the spot that’s clicked.

This is handy when you are scanning a document or wanting to quickly navigate through a section of your photos.

BONUS: In Safari, pressing the Space Bar scrolls the window a screen at a time.

iPad and iPhone App of the Month

Paper Karma: Get a handle on Junk Mail

Paper Karma is a free app that helps eliminate all of the junk mail and catalogs that fill up your mailbox. Just snap a photo of the label on any piece of junkmail and send it to the folks at Paper Karma and your name will be removed from that mailing list.

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Updates! Updates! Updates!

It is so important to keep current with all of your computer software updates. Updates fix bugs, increase security and make things work better.

Updates for all Apple software will come through Software update, under the Apple menu.

In addition, if you have purchased software from the APP Store, you will receive notification there as well.

If you see a red number on the App store icon in the Dock, that means that there is an update waiting for you to install.

Click to open the App Store, then click on Updates in the top right of the menu bar.

For Microsoft Office, Quicken, QuickBooks, Firefox and all non-Apple products, you need to check within each of these Apps for an update. Look under the Help menu for a link to Check for Updates.

iPad and iPhone Tip of the Month

Printing

Yes, of course you can print from your iPad and iPhone. You just need a wireless printer that is Airprint compatible.

For a complete list of printers that are Airprint compatible, click here.

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Tips and Secrets for Addressing Emails

Check out this free video that shows you secrets for addressing emails, clearing out incorrect or old addresses and so much more!

If you like this video, you’ll love the upcoming online class TAME YOUR EMAIL.
Click here for details.

iPad and iPhone Tip of the Month

Four Ways to Conserve Your Battery

Under Settings:

1. Turn off Bluetooth if you are not connected to a wireless keyboard

2. Under General, choose Restrictions, turn off Ping, Apple’s social networking music service

3. Under the iPod setting, turn off the EQ

4. Under Location Services, wisely choose which Apps REALLY need to know where you are

 

Make Things Bigger on the Desktop

Did you know that you can make the text AND icons bigger on the Desktop?

1. From the Finder click the View menu

2. Choose Show View Options

3. You can drag the top slider to make the icons bigger or smaller

4. Change the text size

5. You can even reposition the label text from the bottom to the side

6. Click a check mark next to Show Icon Preview and you’ll see a thumbnail of all of your jpgs

iPad and iPhone App of the Month

Auto-Complete Text

Do you type the same phrases all of the time on your iPad or iPhone? You can create shortcuts for these frequently used sentences.

Let’s say you often type “Love you much” in your emails.

You can create a shortcut so that, when you type LYM it will automatically type the complete phrase.

1. Tap Settings

2. Tap General

3. Scroll all the way down to Keyboard

4. Scroll down to Shortcuts

5. Tap Add New Shortcut…

6. Type in the complete phrase, ie: Love you much!

7. Next to “Shortcut” type the letters you want to use for that phrase, ie: lym

8. Tap SAVE

9. Open up Mail and try it!

You can create many different shortcuts. I’m not sure if there is a limit to how many you can create.

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Launch Pad

Lion’s Launch Pad offers you an easy way to look at your Apps. But it only shows Apple Apps and those you’ve downloaded from the App store. To see ALL the Applications on your Mac, click on the Go menu in the Finder and choose Applications.

iPad and iPhone App of the Month

Play With Friends

There are lots of fun apps that let you play with your friends, even when you’re not together. All of the games offer a free version and a paid version without ads.

Words With Friends is just like Scrabble. Play with me–my name is Ruthr

Draw Something is a combination of Pictionary and Jumble, so that you have letters to give you a hint about what your friend has drawn. No artistic skills necessary. Play with me–my name is Ruthspark

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Drafts in Mail with Lion

Lots of folks are asking where the Drafts Folder went in Mail after they installed Lion. It used to be that SAVE AS DRAFT was a choice. Now, just close the email you want to save and it will give you the option to Save As Draft.

Once you’ve saved something, the Drafts Folder will appear in the Mailbox list in the left column.

iPad and iPhone App of the Month

Weather

The weather widget in the Notification Center doesn’t just show you the weather for today. It can also show you the weather for the next five days.

Just swipe left or right for the full forecast.

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Where Are Those Missing Keys

The Apple Wireless Keyboard is sleek, compact and feels great on your fingers. But it’s missing the numeric keypad and a few other keys that some people are lost without.

Today’s tip is especially for all of you recently converted PC users who miss those special navigational keys.

Use the FN key (bottom left of your keyboard) with the following keys:

PAGE UP = FN + up arrow
PAGE DOWN= FN + down arrow
HOME = FN + left arrow
END = FN + right arrow
FORWRD DELETE = FN + delete

iPad and iPhone App of the Month

Rearranging and Grouping Apps

There are several ways to move and organize your favorite Apps on your screen.

First, press and hold on one of the icons to get them wiggling.

To move an App, just drag the icon to a new position.

To move an App to a different screen, you can try dragging it all the way to the edge of the current screen. But this is aggravating and it doesn’t always work.

Instead, drag the App into the Favorites Bar at the bottom, slide to the preferred screen, then drag the App to where you want it.

The Favorites Bar can hold up to 6 items on an iPad and up to 4 items on the iPhone. You can temporarily move something off of the Favorites Bar to use the placeholder for all of this moving and rearranging.

To group similar Apps together, drag one on top of another and a Folder will be created that you can rename.