Stop Saving These Tips!

I am thrilled that you save these. That you see the value in the information. Some of you even print them in a notebook and reference them.

But most of you never look at them again. Yet you save them in a Mailbox in Mail, or in a separate folder in your Documents.

Thank you. I appreciate the thought.

Now delete them all.

All of the tips are archived on the mac2school/tips website.

Just use Safari’s built-in search feature to find what you’re looking for.

1. In Safari, from the Edit menu choose Find
or hold down the Command key and type F

2. A search box appears in the top right of the toolbar

3. Type the text you’re looking for and press the Return key

4. It will tell you how many there are and the first match will be highlighted

5. Press the Return key again to move to the next match

Be sure to check on all pages by scrolling to the bottom and clicking on the next page number, then searching again.

To delete the folder where you’ve been saving all of these tips:

1. Click once on the folder (Mailbox)

2. From the Mailbox menu choose Delete Mailbox

iPhone and iPad Tip of the Week

Secrets About the Flashlight

The new iOS7 includes a flashlight in the Control Center. Swipe UP from the locked screen or the Home Screen to access it.

There are several ways to turn the flashlight OFF:

1. Use Control Center to turn the iPhone flashlight on as usual

or

2. Tap the Home button to show the lock screen, then tap the Camera icon in the bottom right (no need to slide on Camera to access it, just touch the icon

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Typing Emoticons

Emoticons are those cartoon characters that people include in emails and on FaceBook. They are those winking smiley faces and colorful hearts and random, fun images of things in our lives.

Built into the Mac since Lion, you can easily add these characters.

For Mavericks:

When you’re ready to type a character, activate the Emoji keyboard by holding the Control key and Command key and pressing the Space Bar.
The Emoji characters will appear.Click on the one you want to use

For Mountain Lion and Lion:

1. Under the Apple menu, choose System Preferences
2. Click on the Keyboard icon
3. Check the box to Show Keyboard and Character Viewers in menu
4. A new icon appears in the top right menu bar, next to the clock
5. Click it to show the Character Viewer
6. The left column shows the different collections of symbols, shapes and arrows that have always been available on the Mac
7. Click Emoji to access the cartoon emoticons
8. Click on People, Nature, Objects, Places and Symbols to see the choices
9. To use one simply drag it to where you are typing

iPhone and iPad Tip of the Week

Typing Emoticons

You can easily access these same fun graphics on your iPad and iPhone wherever you have a keyboard.

1. Tap Settings

2. Tap General

3. Tap Keyboard

4. Tap Keyboards

5. Add a Keyboard

6. Choose Emoji

7. Close Settings

Now, anytime you want to type a fun character:

1. On the keyboard, tap the world globe icon to the left of the space bar

2. Choose the characters you want

3. Tap the globe again to return to your regular keyboard

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Comparing Photos

You can compare two or more photos in iPhoto by clicking on one, holding down Command and clicking on the others.

Click Edit and they will appear side by side so you can decide which one is better.

iPhone and iPad Tip of the Week

Downloading Apps

The other day I suggested a popular app to a client for her iPad. But it didn’t appear in the App Store.
When you are searching the App Store, it limits what you see by iPad and iPhone. Many apps are designed for iPhones, but also work on iPads.

So if you don’t see what you’re looking for, try searching in the iPhone section.

By the way, the app I was recommending is GasBuddy, great for traveling to see what the price of gas is in any town.

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Upgrading to Mavericks

Lots of folks have been asking about upgrading, whether they should, what do they need, what will they gain.

While each person’s needs may be different, there are some primary reasons why a person SHOULD upgrade:

* if you have an iPhone or iPad and you want your Contacts and Calendars and Notes to sync between all devices

* if you want to start storing your Pages/Numbers/Keynote documents on iCloud so you can work on them from any device

Be advised that you will likely have to upgrade versions of software to work with Mavericks, including the newest iPhoto and Pages. You may also need to purchase newer versions of Word and other apps to work with Mavericks.

iPhone and iPad Tip of the Week

Teaching Autocorrect a New Word

1. If you have an iPhone and iOS7 you can teach it the correct word

2. Open Safari in iOS (yes, the web browser)

3. Open a new window

4. Tap in the topmost “Search” box and type the word you want Autocorrect to stop correcting

5. Tap on “Go” to search for it

6. Now go back to Mail, Messages, etc, to type the originally intended word – no more autocorrecting it!

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Full Screen

It’s a great feature – being able to fill the screen with the window you’re working with. You just click on the diagonal arrows in the top right of the window.

Except a lot of folks are writing because they clicked it inadvertently and now don’t know how to get back to normal.

To return to your regular screen, hover your cursor in the far top right corner to reveal the menu bar and click on those same diagonal arrows, which are now blue.

Now you can consciously choose when to use Full Screen.

iPhone and iPad Tip of the Week

Quickest Way to Take a Picture

I love walking up to strangers who are using their iPhones to take a picture and sharing this tip.

Instead of swiping to unlock your iPhone or iPad and then opening the camera app, try this:

From the locked Home Screen, look for the very faint icon of the camera to the right of the Slide to Unlock. Drag the camera icon up and you’ll be right there, ready to snap a photo.

It takes a little practice to get the right pressure for the upward swipe, but once you master it, you’ll never do it the old way again.

 

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.

 

Have a Little Google Fun

The Google search engine has quite a few hidden secrets, called Easter Eggs. To get the most fun out of them, go to www.google.com and type in the suggested search words. Then click the I’m Feeling Lucky button to activate the Easter Egg.

If you don’t see the I’m Feeling Lucky button, click on the gear in the upper right corner, click Search Settings, then, under Google Instant, choose Do Not Use Google Instant, then scroll down to Save Preferences in the bottom right corner.

1. Google Tilt: Search the term “askew” and you’ll get more than just the definition…

2. Google Gravity: Search “Google gravity” and then click the I’m Feeling Lucky button. Whoa!

3. Google Sphere: Search “Google sphere” then click the I’m Feeling Lucky button. Yeah.

4. Barrel Roll: Search “do a barrel roll” and hold onto your stomach!

5. Google Rainbow: Search “Google rainbow” and then click I’m Feeling Lucky. Can you see the rainbow?

6. Ask Google “where is Chuck Norris?” and click the I’m Feeling Lucky button.

7. Pig Latin Google: For some Pig Latin fun, Google “ooglegay igpay atinlay”

8. Google Pacman: View the awesome Google Pacman Doodle by searching “Google Pacman” and click the I’m Feeling Lucky button. Use your arrows to play a real game!

9. Google Guitar: Search “Google guitar” and click I’m Feeling Lucky. Strum away with the musical Google Doodle to honor Les Paul’s 96th birthday.

10. Google Pirate: Arrr! Search “Google pirate” and click I’m Feeling Lucky. (This one made me giggle.)

11. Google Hacker: Google gets hacked! Type in “Google hacker” and then click I’m feeling lucky.

12. Google Loco: Search “Google loco” and uh, it gets a little crazy. (Try searching something now!)

13. Weenie Google: Search “weenie Google,” click the I’m Feeling Lucky button, and watch it shrink away!

14. Epic Google: Or, search “epic Google,” click the I’m Feeling Lucky button, and see what you get.

15. Gothic Google: Feeling a bit dark? Search “Google gothic” and click the I’m Feeling Lucky button.

16. Google Flight Simulator: Enjoy the Flight Simulator when you go to Google Earth, click on Tools > Enter Flight Simulator and you’re off!

17. Ask Google “what is the loneliest number?”

iPad and iPhone Tip of the Week

This month’s apps are all about pure, simple, no experience necessary FUN!

MyPaint Free requires no artistic talent. Just pick a color, adjust the thickness of the brush and drag your finger on the blank page to create your very own masterpiece.

Taiko brings a set of Japanese Taiko drums to your iPad. The harder you hit the drums, the louder the sound. Swirl your finger for faster or slower rolls. For one or two drummers!

Songify turns speech into music, automatically. Speak into your device, choose a rhythm, then sit back and laugh.

Note: Even if an app is only available for the iPhone, you can still install it on the iPad and even enlarge it to full screen!

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How to Back Up Your Address Book

Even if you use Time Machine to backup your computer, it’s a great idea to have a separate backup of just your Address Book that you can save onto a flashdrive, just in case.

Here’s a free video lesson that will teach you how to do this!

iPad and iPhone Tip of the Week

Emailing More Than One Photo

It’s pretty simple to email one photo:

1. Tap the Photos icon on the Home screen

2. Tap the Photo

3. Tap the arrow icon in the top right corner

4. Select Email Photo

To send more than one photo at a time:

1. Tap the Photos icon on the Home screen

2. Tap the arrow icon in the top right corner

3. Now tap the photos you want to send and a check mark will appear on the photos

4. Tap Share in the top left corner

5. Choose Email

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Private Browsing with Safari

Are you doing a lot of online shopping for the holidays and don’t want your family members to see what you’ve been buying?

You can set Safari to NOT include your visited websites in the History.

From the Safari menu, choose Private Browsing

Done. No more snooping or spoiled surprises.

 

iPad Tip of the Week

Typing an Apostrophe

How often do you need to type an apostrophe. It’s such a pain to press the ?123 key to switch to the punctuation keyboard.

Here’s an easy trick:

Press and hold on the ,! key and the apostrophe key will appear. Just slide your finger on it to use it.

ATTENTION iPOD NANO USERS

Some 1st Generation iPod Nanos have Faulty Batteries

Apple is recalling a series of 1st generation iPod Nanos and replacing them, free of charge. The affected products were sold between September 2005 and December 2006 and have the risk of overheating and possibly even catching on fire.

 

Click here to determine if your iPod is one of the affected units and for all of the details on replacement.

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Changing What Appears When You Re-Open a program

Lion’s Resume feature automatically re-opens all of the windows you were working in when you Quit the program. This can be a handy, time-saving feature for some people, and an annoyance for others.

To turn off the Resume feature in only certain programs, hold down the Option key when Quitting and the choice will say “Quit and Close All Windows”.

To disable Resume for all programs, in System Preferences, choose General. Below the choices for Number of Recent items, remove the check mark next to “Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps”.

iPad and iPhone Tip of the Week

Auto-Complete Text

Do you type the same phrases all of the time on your iPad or iPhone? The new iOS 5 has a slick new feature to help you with this.

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!

10. 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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Reading Articles in Safari Just Got Easier

Have you found an interesting article to read, but you find all of the ads on the screen so distracting?

Safari has a built in READER feature that will open most articles in a new window with just the article. No distractions.

1. Find an article in a newspaper

2. Click on the word READER that appears at the far right side of the page’s address (this may not be available for all articles)

3. The article will open in a new window

4. Click READER again to get back to the full page in Safari

iPad and iPhone Tip of the Week

Format Text in Mail with iOS5

It’s true. Now you can bold, italicize and even underline text in Mail. And you can indent paragraphs too.

1. Select the text you want to change

2. Tap the right arrow at the far right of the Cut, Copy, Paste menu

3. Tap BIU to change the format or Quote Level if you want to indent

4. Tap your desired format choice

5. Tap on the page to get out of the menu

 

 

 

iCal: Moving an Event from One Day to the Next

Instead of deleting an event and recreating it on the correct day:

Hold down the Option key and drag the event to the desired day.

iPAD and iPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

Moving Apps From One Screen to Another

It’s handy to have your most frequently used Apps in the first page. And it’s pretty easy to move your Apps around.

First, press and hold on the App you want to move. They’ll all start wiggling. Now drag the App to the edge of the current page and it should move to the next page.

If it doesn’t seem to work, here’s a faster way:

Once you have everything wiggling, drag the App onto the bottom dock of favorite Apps. Switch to the page you want to move it to, then drag it from the dock onto that page.

Yes, you can add and rearrange the Apps in that Favorites dock this way too.

When you’re done rearranging, press the Home button to stop the wiggling.

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The Difference Between the APP store and the iTunes Store

The APP STORE, found in the Dock and under the Apple menu on your computer, is where you can now go to purchase applications for your Mac. Instead of going to a store and purchasing a DVD, you can now download hundreds of programs and games that work on your Mac.

To find APPS to use on your iPhone or iPad, you don’t use the APP store. Instead, open iTunes and click on the iTunes Store.

To quickly find APPS for your Device, try the POWER SEARCH feature.

On the right side of the iTunes Store Home screen is a list of Quick Links.

1. Click on Power Search

2. Click on All Results and change to Apps

3. Under Device Compatibility, choose your Device

4. You can search by title, category, even choose to only look for Free Apps.

iPAD and iPHONE APP OF THE MONTH

Clients Share Their Favorite Apps

With the thousands of Apps available, it’s hard to know which ones to try. So each month I’ll share some of my clients’ favorite apps.

The easiest way to find a particular APP:
On your iPhone or iPad:

1. Click on App Store icon

2. Click the Search icon at the bottom

Or, if you purchase through iTunes on your Mac,use the Power Search feature:

1. In iTunes, click on iTunes Store

2. In the far right column under Quick Links, Click on Power Search

3. Change “All Results” to APPS

4. Enter words in the Keywords

5. You can also limit to just iPad or just iPhone

This month’s recommended apps, available for iPhone and iPad, are all about relaxing. And they’re all FREE so try them!

Buddhist Meditation (Lite): A free collection of five soul-stirring Buddhist melodies.

Relax Melodies: Rain, gong, piano, birds, thunder, xylophone, wind–you can combine your favorites sounds to achieve deep relaxation and meditation.

iZen Garden2 Lite: All the peace and tranquility of a Japanese Zen garden without the sandy mess.

YogaFree: 250 yoga poses with instructions and photos and more.

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Emails Print Too Small to Read

Several clients have asked why their emails print in such a tiny font that they can’t read them.

In the print window, there are several choices.

If you don’t see them, first click the triangle next to the name of your printer.
Or, in Lion, click Show Details.

To have emails print so that you can read them, be sure that
Keep the same apparent font size is the selected option.

iPAD and iPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

Charging the Batteries

The fastest way to charge your iPhone and iPad is with the USB power adapter.

They will also charge, though slower, when connected to your computer. But if your computer is turned off or in sleep mode, the batteries will NOT charge but, instead, will continue to drain.

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Emailing Pics with iPhoto ’11

The newest version of iPhoto gives you two choices for emailing photos. By default, a new, fancier email is sent that allows you to choose different styles, like a corkboard or snapshot or collage.

While these are really fun, the recipient cannot download the pictures because they are embedded in the email and are not attachments.

To send photos as attachments, you need to change a preference.

1. In iPhoto click on the iPhoto menu and choose Preferences
2. Click on the General button
3. Next to the choice, Email photos using, click on iPhoto
4. Change it to Mail
5. Close the Preferences and now choose some photos to send.

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iPAD and iPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

Taking a Screen Shot

Sometimes you have something on your screen that you want to share with someone in an email.

To take a snapshot of your screen:

Press and HOLD the Home button and also press the Sleep/Wake button at the same time. The screen will flash and you’ll hear a click, indicating that a photo has been taken.

Your screen shots are saved automatically in your Photos gallery where you can view and then email them.