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.