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!

——————–

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.

—————-

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

 

 

 

Are You Missing Emails?
Losing Emails You Thought You Saved?

Many of my clients are telling me that they aren’t getting emails. Or that when they delete one email, suddenly many are gone.

There is a feature in Apple Mail that automatically groups emails together that are related, part of the same “conversation.” In Snow Leopard, this is called THREADS. In Lion it’s called CONVERSATIONS.

Some people like to see all related emails grouped together. But for many of us, it’s an extra step that is causing confusion.

To turn this feature OFF, in Mail, click on the View menu and choose Organize by Thread or Organize by Conversation to remove the checkmark.

Now all of your emails will appear individually, in the order that they were received.

iPAD and iPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

Missing Emails?
Losing Emails You Thought You Saved?

This same Threading feature is available on your iPhone and iPad.

To turn it OFF

1. Click on Settings

2. Click on Mail, Contacts, Calendars

3. Scroll all the way down, almost to the bottom

4. Next to Organize By Thread, slide the switch to OFF

———-

Sharing Google Maps and Directions

If you’ve ever tried to send someone directions from Google maps using the Mail Link to this Page, you’ve probably discovered that the recipient gets a blank page.

To share a map or driving directions:

1. Map out the route on your computer

2. Under the File menu, chose Print

3. In the Print window, click on the PDF choice in the bottom left

4. Choose Mail PDF

5. A new email message will appear with an image of the map already attached.

iPAD and iPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

With more than 200 new features in the new iOS 5, it was hard to choose just ONE to share. this is one of my new favorites.

Quick Scroll To The Top

When you reach the bottom of an article, or an email or the news feed in FaceBook, instead of scrolling all the way back to the top, just tap in the very top black horizontal menu space where the time and battery are displayed and you’ll zip right up to the top of the screen.

———-

Resizing dpi of Photos

If you’re an artist you may need to resize your photos to certain parameters for submissions.

iPhoto does not include a feature to do this but you can resize your images in Preview.

1. Drag the photo to the Desktop

2. Drag the photo from the Desktop on top of the Preview icon in the Dock. If you don’t have it there, from the Go menu, choose Applications, find Preview and drag it onto your Dock

3. In Preview, from the Tools menu choose Adjust Size

4. Make your desired changes, either in inches or pixels (dpi means dots or pixels per inch)

5. You’ll see that the file size changes as you make adjustments

6. Click OK when done

7. From the File menu, choose either Save As (Snow Leopard) or Duplicate (Lion)

8. Title the new version

9. Click Save

iPAD and iPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

Setting Picture Frame Preferences

When your iPad is asleep and locked you can still view Photos. this is called Picture Frame mode. It’s different than the Slide Show mode when you are in your Photos

To set your preferences for Picture Frame:

1. Click Settings

2. Click Picture Frame

3. Choose your Transition

4. Choose how long it shows each photo, whether to Zoom in on faces, and if you want them Shuffled, in a random order

5. Choose which photos and albums to show

————-

Adjusting the Brightness

Does your computer screen seem dim? Does the screen get dark if you don’t touch it for a while?

One way to brighten the screen is by pressing the key on your keyboard above the number 2 with the picture of the sun on it.

To change the setting that automatically dims the screen:

1. Under the Apple menu, choose System Preferences

2. Click on Energy Saver. It looks like a light bulb

3. Adjust the time settings for the Display Sleep

4. Remove the check mark next to Automatically reduce brightness before display goes to sleep

IPAD and IPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

Turn Off the Clicking Sound When You Type

If you find the clicking sound annoying or disruptive, it’s easy to turn off.

1. Tap the Settings icon

2. Tap General

3. Tap Sounds

4. Slide the button next to Keyboard Clicks to OFF

This is also where you can turn off the sounds for New Mail and more.

 

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.

==============

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.

==============

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.

==============

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.

==============

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.

 

Lion’s New Scrolling Options

If you upgraded to Lion, you’ve probably noticed some changes in scrolling. The most noticeable difference is that the direction of scrolling is now reversed. Apple thinks it’s more natural that, if you scroll up, then the contents of the window should scroll up.

Maybe you like this new reversed direction.

Or maybe you’d like it to work like it did before Lion. If so:

1. Under the Apple menu choose System Preferences.

2. Click on the Trackpad icon

3. In the very top of this window, remove the checkmark next to “When using gestures to scroll or navigate, move content in the direction of finger movement”.

You might also notice that the Scroll Bars aren’t always there. Again, Apple assumes more people will be using a trackpad and scrolling with the gestures on the trackpad.

To change how often you see the Scroll Bars:

1. Under the Apple menu choose System Preferences.

2. Click on the General icon

3. Click on your desired preferences

iPAD and iPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

Change Your Default Email Address

If you have more than one email address, you can choose which one is automatically used when you send emails from your iPhone or iPad.

1. Click on Settings

2. Click on Mail, Contacts, Calendars

3. Scroll all the way down to Default Account

4. Click on the address that’s showing so that you can choose which email address you want to use

————-

Are You Missing Emails? Understanding Conversations

When we Reply to an email, or receive an email that is a Reply to something we’ve sent, this is considered a thread (in Leopard), or conversation (in Lion).

Some people like to group these emails together so that they can easily follow the order of the conversation. But when they are grouped, you can easily not notice when a new message comes in that is related to the conversation.

To turn off this feature so that you see each email individually in your Inbox:

In Mail, under the View menu, remove the check mark next to View As Thread (if you are using a version of Leopard) or View as Conversation (if you are using Lion.

You can make further choices about how you view these related emails in Mail’s Preferences, in the Viewing section.

MAC BONUS: FREE VIDEO TIP

I’ve started working on a new series of videos that share some of my favorite new features in Lion.

Maybe seeing what’s new will help you decide to upgrade.

Check out this free video that shows you how to play your iTunes music even when your computer is in sleep mode.

It’s called the Jukebox Screensaver. Just click on the icon to go to the video. Once there, you can click the tool in the bottom right to enlarge it to full screen.

Jukebox Screensaver

iPAD and iPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

Reception Issues

Cell phones send and receive signals from cell towers. As you drive around town, the signal connects to various towers, handshaking from one to the other. If you drive through an area without a tower (along the 51 through the Phoenix Mountain Preserve, for example) your phone loses connection from the system, if only for a brief minute, and even when it reconnects to the next tower, the signal may not be a 100% handshake.

You may notice more dropped calls or voicemails that show up on your phone hours after the call.

To resolve this issue, AT&T recommends turning off/on your iPhone after you drive through an area with no towers, and also turning your phone off and on at least every two weeks to re-establish full handshaking. Some people get into the habit of turning their phone off every day to ensure the best reception.

To turn your iPhone off, push and hold the sleep button on the top of the phone until you see a screen with the option “slide to power off.” If you continue to have problems with delayed voicemails and dropped calls, contact AT&T.

————-

Safari’s New reading List

If you’re like me, you find a lot of great articles and websites when you are browsing the internet. Maybe you save them as Bookmarks, but rarely go back to read them.

The newest version of Safari offers a great feature for people like us.

Click on the pair of eyeglasses under the Back Arrow icon at the left of Safari’s toolbar. This is the new Reading List, a place to collect web pages that you’d like to come back and read at a later time.

Clicking the eyeglasses again will hide the list.

To add something to your Reading List:

1. Go to a page you’d like to save

2. Click on the eyeglasses and the window will appear.

3. Click Add Page.

Click an entry to go to it.
Click the X next to an entry to remove it from the list.
Click Clear All to clear the entire list.

 

iPAD and iPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

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.

This month’s recommended apps, available for iPhone and iPad, are all about fun and creativity:

Brushes: Express your artistic side with painting and drawing tool that work just like the real thing.

Wreck This App: For kids of all ages, get messy, break the rules, color outside the lines.

iBrainstorm: A fun tool to draw, write and share your greatest ideas.

————-

Get a Quick Definition

Sometimes you’ll be reading something and would like the definition of a word. Instead of stopping, opening up Dictionary and typing in the word in question, try this.

Hold down the Command and Control keys and type the letter D and move your mouse on top of the word

The definition will appear as a pop-up menu.

NOTE: This works with most Apple branded applications (Mail, Safari, Pages) but not Word, Firefox and other non-Apple products.

To access the Dictionary in these other Applications, hold down the Control key and click (or Right click) in the middle of the word and choose Look Up or Dictionary, if it’s an option.

iPAD and iPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

Customize Your Signature

 

 

By default, evey email you send says “Sent from my iPhone or iPad.” You can remove this and even add your own signature.

1. From the Home screen, click on Settings
2. Scroll down to Mail, Contacts, Calendars
3. Scroll all the way down to Signature
4. Delete the existing text and type what you’d like it to say
5. There is no need to Save it, just click back on Mail and you’ll see that, next to Signature, it now shows the first words of what you typed.

—————–

The Fastest Way to Open Any Application

 

Your most frequently used Applications are probably in your Dock and so clicking on the icon will open it.

But sometimes you might need to open an Application that isn’t on your Dock. Instead of finding the Applications folder and scrolling through to find what you want:

1. Click your cursor in the top right corner next to the icon of the magnifying glass. This is Spotlight, the built-in searching tool. A lot of people use Spotlight to find Documents and Files.

2. Type in the name of the Application you’re looking for and it won’t just find it, it will automaticlaly open it!

iPAD and iPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

 

 

Mobile Boarding Passes

 

 

Have you seen people checking in by showing the ticketing agent their iPhone or iPad? Several airlines offer the option of a mobile boarding pass.

The boarding pass is emailed to you when you check in online. Usually you have the option of printing the boarding pass, or emailing it to you. You open the email, then click on the link that says, “Get mobile boarding pass.” Then the bar-code comes up on the phone.

Not all airlines offer this service and not all airports use the system.

Here’s a link to check which airports currently support the mobile boarding pass.

 

Mastering the Keypad

One of the biggest changes that users are experiencing with Lion is how much you can do with the Trackpad, whether it’s the built-in trackpad on your laptop or the stand alone bluetooth Magic Trackpad that you can purchase for $69.00 from Apple.
Even with Snow Leopard, the trackpad can be set to do all kinds of things, from rotating photos to enlarging text.

To customize the Trackpad:

1. Under the Apple menu choose System Preferences

2. Click on the Trackpad icon

Depending on the age of the computer you’re using, you’ll see a variety of options. On newer Macs you’ll also see video demonstrations of each of the option.

For a complete description of all of the Trackpad options, click on the question mark in the bottom right corner of the Trackpad window.

It takes a little practice to learn where to click and how many fingers to use, but if you try one new technique at a time, you’ll soon be a trackpad master.

 

iPAD and iPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

Be Sure to Update

Even if you do all of your syncing with MobileMe, it’s important to connect your iPhone and iPad to your Mac regularly so that it can check for updates.

You always want to update to the latest versions of the software so that you can take advantage of all of the newest features. Mark it on your calendar to update once a month.

———–

Before Upgrading to Lion:

Apple released Lion today, the newest version of the Mac OS. But before you rush to upgrade, you’ll want to be sure that you have what you need, and that everything you use will still run with the new OS.

Lion requires an Intel Core 2 Duo processor
and recommended 4 GB RAM

You can check your system by clicking on the Apple menu in the top left corner and choosing About This Mac.

There are several popular programs that will no longer work once you upgrade, including Quicken, Appleworks, Microsoft Office X and many older games.

Click here for a great article that offers the essential steps before upgrading, including backing up and checking to see what applications you have that will no longer work.

If you’re not sure, or not ready, hold off on upgrading to Lion. But do upgrade to 10.6.8, the latest version of Snow Leopard.

If you have any questions, or need help, send me an email!

———–

Searching in mail

If you have a lot of emails in your Inbox, it can be pretty tedious to scroll up and down, looking for a particular email.

In the top right corner there is a search box. Type in what you are looking for. (If you don’t see it, make your window wider.)

Now, just below the icons of the toolbar, you’ll also see that you can limit the search criteria: where you are searching, and whether you are looking for that text in the Entire Message, From, To or Subject.

 

iPAD and iPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

Numbers and Punctuation

If you press the 123 key, the keyboard layout switches to numbers and punctuation. Then you have to press ABC again to get back to the letter keyboard.

Shortcut:

Tap and HOLD the 123 key and slide to the number you need. When you release, the keyboard will automatically switch back to the letters.

———–

A Great Way to Use Mobile Me

My favorite feature about MobileMe is that I can save important emails on the cloud and am able to access them from my computer, my laptop, my phone AND my iPad, and even from someone else’s computer via the web. I find this especially helpful when I am traveling–all of my flight information, reservation confirmations and other important stuff is with me.

To set this up:

1. In Mail, click the plus sign at the bottom of the left column that shows all of your Mailboxes.

2. Chose to create a New Mailbox.

3. Title it (ie. TRAVEL)

4. Next to Location, choose ME.COM (or Mac.com if you’ve had the account for a while)

5. Now, drag any important travel emails into this Mailbox and those emails will be on every other device that has your MobileMe account set up.

iPAD and iPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

Mobile me Mailboxes

See the above tip to set up Mailboxes in Mail that you can access from your iPhone or iPad.

———–

Changing Dates in iCal

iCal has so many great features that make it easy to schedule appointments, celebrations, meetings and more. It’s easy to color-code each entry, set it to be a recurring event every week, every month or on a customized schedule. You can even set an alarm to remind you ahead of time.

Sometimes, you’ll have an event set for a particular day but then the day is changed.

Instead of clicking on the Event, clicking Edit and changing the information, just drag it to the new date.

To duplicate an event, hold down the Option key and drag the event to the new date.

iPAD and iPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

All About Sounds

You can control what sounds play when different things happen. Maybe you don’t like the sound when you unlock your device. Maybe you prefer NOT to hear a sound every time you receive or send an email or when someone sends you a text or leaves a voicemail.

It’s easy to choose which sounds and alerts you want to hear.

1. Click on Settings.

2. Click on Sounds.

3. Scroll through the list, choosing which you want on and which you want off.

This is also where you can choose a different ringtone and make the Vibrate feature silent.

 

Which Newsletter Program Is Best For You?

It used to be that, if you wanted to stay in touch with your clients or your club members or even your family, you mailed them a newsletter. These newsletters were mostly text, maybe with a single photo at the end.

Nowadays, we want to include lots of pictures and maps and use fun fonts and colors. While these enhancements look great, they make the files really, really big.

If you are still snail mailing your newsletter, the file size isn’t an issue. But if you are emailing your content, it may be time to consider a new way to work.

Microsoft Word and Pages are great applications for designing and creating a newsletter if you are printing and then mailing your newsletter. And Pages makes it even easier with templates and simple ways to add pictures and wrap text around them.

But if you are sending your newsletter as an email, consider switching to an online email marketing program, like Constant Contact.

Constant Contact allows you to create a template and then just copy it each time, update the content and send it. You can add photos, jogs, even your own logo and signature.

Constant Contact has many templates to choose from, for newsletters, cards, flyers and more and it works with its own mailing lists so that you can choose who to send to.

For example, if you do the newsletter for your garden club, you may need to send some correspondence just to the board members while the entire membership receives your monthly newsletter. So you can create two different lists and only send to the selected list. You can even schedule your newsletter to be sent on a particular day.

No more struggling to line up your text in columns. No more sacrificing color and photos to get a reasonably sized file. With Constant Contact you can have it all.

The cost for this easy, efficient web-based email marketing program starts at $15.00 a month. For more information visit http://www.constantcontact.com/index.jsp

And of course, I can help you set it up, create your templates and master this amazing, easy-to-use program.

And, if you still snail mail your newsletters, I’m happy to help you learn the great features in Pages that will make creating and designing your newsletters much easier and more fun!

iPAD and iPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

Caps Lock

While there is no Caps Lock key on the iPad or iPhone keyboard, you can create one.

1. Click on Settings

2. Click General

3. Click Keyboard

4. Make your choices for several keyboard options, including Enable Caps Lock

To use the Caps Lock, double tap the Shift arrow and it will turn blue, indicating that the Caps Lock is on.

———–

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.

8. 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.

iPAD and iPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

Rearranging Icons, Grouping Into Folders

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, drag it all the way to the edge of the current screen. If this doesn’t work for you, drag the App into the Favorites Bar at the bottom, slide to the preferred screen, then drag the App to where you want it.

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

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Fast Finding and Searching

Every program on the Mac has a Search tool. Usually it’s a rounded rectangular box with a mini magnifying glass in the upper right hand corner of the screen. (If you don’t see it, try dragging your window wider to reveal it.)

Just type what you’re looking for in this box to save you time and aggravation.

In Mail, when you Search, you can limit where Mail looks and what it looks for by clicking on one of the choices across the top: All Mailboxes or just the one selected, whether the text is in the Entire Message, From, To or part of the Subject of the email.

To find a folder or document saved on your Mac, you can use click on the magnifying glass icon in the top right corner to open up Spotlight, which gives you a list of all items.

A second way to Find documents is to choose the Find command under the File menu in the Finder. Type in what you’re looking for and a list will appear. Click once on the item and at the bottom of the window, you’ll see the path listed, so you know where to find the item.

iPAD and iPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

Fast Searching

Looking for a person’s phone number? While you might think it’s pretty easy to click on your Contacts and scroll to that person’s name, there is a much faster way.

Slide to the screen to the left of the first Home screen to reveal the built-in Spotlight program. Begin typing the person’s name. Not only will their name appear next to the icon of the Contacts, but you’ll also see all emails related to that person, any iCal appointments. Click on any entry and you’re there.

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Typing Accent Marks and Foreign Language Letters

It’s easy to type foreign characters such as accent marks on a Mac. As an example, for the word Qu√©, The accent mark is an optional character above the e.

First type “qu” then,

Hold down the option key and type “e” to get the accent mark. It will appear above the text and create an empty space.

Then type the “e” that goes under the accent mark.

To see what other optional characters you can type, such as Àú and ¬ø, you can look at the Keyboard Viewer.

Hold down the Option key in Keyboard Viewer to reveal some hidden characters.

Hold down the Shift and Option keys to reveal additional characters.

To actually type those characters, just hold down the corresponding keys when you are in your actual document.

iPAD and iPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

Keeping Up With Software Updates

Be sure to connect your iPad or iPhone or iPod to your computer at least once a month. Apple often releases new versions of the software for your device and the only way to update it is when you connect via iTunes.

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Change the Size of Things on Your Desktop

If you save a lots of things to your Desktop, it can often be hard to find what you’re looking for. Maybe the icons are too small or you can’t read the words.

In the Finder, under the View menu, choose Show View Options.

In this window you can drag the slider to make the icons bigger.

You can change the size of the text that appears under the icon. You can even choose to place the text label on the side of the icon if you prefer.

In this window you can also choose Arrange By… to automatically arrange your icons by date, by name or manually.

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Warning: Ignore Any Messages on Internet That You Have a Virus

If you ever see a pop up window on Safari or recieve an email warning you that your system’s security has been compromised, or that you have a virus, and you should click on a link to fix it, IGNORE IT! It is a scam to get you to run a program that may, in fact, GIVE YOU a virus.

An Easier Way to Browse Music in iTunes

We all look through our music differently. Sometimes you’re looking for a particular artist or a favorite album. Sometimes you may want to find all music of a certain genre.

I find that using the Column Browser makes it easier to navigate through my music library.

in iTunes, under the View menu, choose Show Column Browser. Go back up to the View menu, and choose to show it on the Top or Left side. You can also select which columns show in the Browser.

I’ve chosen Genres, Artists and Albums and, in the bigger, bottom pane, I have my music sorted by song name.

Now I can quickly browse and find music by any of these columns.

Yes, you can also type what you are looking for in the Search Music box in the top right corner.

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How To Add Numbered Lists in an Email

Sometimes you may want to add a list in an email and you’d like to number or bullet the list so that it stands out and indents and lines up perfectly when it wraps.

In a new email message, begin typing your regular text. When you’re ready to start your list, go up to the Format menu and choose Lists. Slide over to choose either a Bulleted List or a Number List. Begin typing.

Mail will automatically number or bullet each line when you press Return. To stop the numbering, press Return a second time.

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Secrets of the Scroll Bar

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.

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Cleaning Your Keyboard and Mouse

Keyboard:

If your keyboard is wired, first disconnect it from your computer. If it is wireless, turn off the power on the keyboard and remove the batteries.

Use a lint-free cloth lightly moistened with water. Don’t get moisture in any openings and don’t use aerosol sprays, solvents, or abrasives.

Mouse:

If your mouse is wired, first disconnect it from your computer. If your mouse is wireless, slide the power switch to off and remove the batteries. Clean the outside of your mouse or trackpad with a lint-free cloth lightly moistened with water. Don’t get moisture into any openings and don’t use aerosol sprays, solvents, or abrasives.

If the scroll ball on your Mighty Mouse has become discolored or dirty, use a clean, lint-free cloth lightly moistened with water to clean it.

Wipe the ball and the surrounding area, making sure to rotate the ball itself to ensure complete coverage.

If the scrolling feels rough or if the scroll ball isn’t scrolling up, down, or side-to-side, hold the Mighty Mouse upside down and roll the ball vigorously while cleaning it to help dislodge any particles that may have collected on the internal hardware.

 

Clearing Safari’s Auto Fill-In

One of the many great features of Safari is the Auto-Fill function. You begin typing and it fills in the rest. This is helpful for forms with your name and address, but what about all of those sites you’ve googled that automatically re-appear every time you search?

You can clear out all or some of the auto-fill items.

1. Under the Safari menu choose Preferences.

2. Click on the Auto-Fill icon. Your personal information is pulled in from your Address Book card and everything else is stored under “other forms.”

3. Click Edit next to Other forms to see a list of all the websites with stored information. To clear out the fill-in information, click on the site and click Remove or choose to Remove All.

4. For example, to clear out the google search fill-ins, click on google.com in the list and click Remove.

The next time you search, nothing will automatically fill in but it will begin remembering your new entries.

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Setting Your Mac to Automatically Turn On and Off

Turning your Mac on and off several times in a day is not very energy efficient. But it’s good housekeeping to restart your Mac regularly. Restarting takes care of all kinds of behind the scenes file maintenance to keep your Mac working efficiently.

Many of my clients forget to do this and so here’s a way to schedule a daily or weekly shutdown and start up. This is also great if you turn off your computer every night and don’t like waiting for it to start up in the morning.

1. Under the Apple menu, choose System Preferences

2. Click on the Energy Saver icon

3. In the bottom right corner, click on Schedule

4. Put a check next to Start or wake up and choose your preference for how often from the pulldown menu.

5. Set the time.

6. On the next line, choose Shut Down from the pull down menu and set those preferences.

7. Click OK, close your System Preferences.

Restarting will perform the necessary housekeeping duties. Shutdown will also save energy and even give the computer a chance to fully cool down.

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Skype Security Preferences

It used to be that long distance phone calls were the only way to stay in touch with faraway family and friends.

Now there’s Apple FaceTime and iChat for video chatting with Macs and iPhones and iPod2 users and also Skype, which works with anyone on any computer.

As with any program where you communicate with the world, it’s important to check your privacy settings and ensure the safest, most secure situation.

Today’s tip offers some Skype Security Settings to keep your online identity safe and secure.

When you first sign up for your Skype account, you have to fill in your name, email address.

Only fill in the required information, noted by an asterisk. You do NOT need to share your address, sex, birthday or anything else that doesn’t have an asterisk.

Once your account is set up, it’s important to set your Privacy Preferences.

1. From the Skype menu, choose Preferences.

2. Click on the Privacy icon.

3. I recommend changing all of the choices to ONLY SHARE INFO with people on your contacts list.

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Changing How You Choose Colors

You can apply colors to text in email, your calendars in iCal, as well as within your other programs.

When you click on the Colors icon, a palette of colors appears.

But did you know you can change how you choose your colors?

Across the top of the Colors window are five icons, for the five different ways to view colors.

The furthest left icon is for the Color Wheel. You can slide the vertical scroll bar up and down to adjust the intensity of color.

The second icon is for the Color Sliders that allow you to adjust the values of a color, adding and removing red, greed and blue until you get the desired color.

The middle icon allows you to choose colors by Palette.

The fourth icon shows you all of the colors as a Spectrum.

The icon to the far right is the simplest way to choose color–from a box of Crayons. The Crayon Box is also the easiest way to get back to using black.

BONUS:

You can also create and save your own colors.

Try this:

1. Go to the Color Wheel and click to choose a color.

2. Slide the scroll bar to get the perfect intensity.

3. The color chosen appears in the rectangular box at the top.

4. Drag the color from that box to one of the small squares at the bottom of the window and that color will now be available in every color tool and in every application that allows you to use colors.

 

Selecting Items

One of the fastest ways to work more efficiently is to learn how to select more than one item at a time.

For example, instead of selecting and deleting one email at a time, you can select some, or all and then delete them all at the same time.

These steps will work for selecting items on the Desktop, in a folder, as well as in Mail, iPhoto, iTunes.

To Select All:

From the Edit menu, choose Select All, or hold down the Command key and type the letter A for All.

To cherry pick, meaning selecting this one and this one, not this one and this one:

1, Click on the first item

2. Hold down the Command key

3. Click on the next and the next and the next

If you accidentally click on one by accident, keep the Command key down and click on it again and it will un-select it.

To Select a Series, meaning many in a row:

1. Click on the first item in the series

2. Hold down the Shift key

3. Click on the last item in the series and all will be highlighted.

Bonus: You can combine these tricks to select MOST:

Select All or Select a Series Hold down the Command key and click on the items you DON’T want to include.

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Creating Page Breaks in Word Processing Documents

Many of my clients create word processing documents that are longer than one page. They press the Return key to create enough blank lines to have certain text begin on the next page. The only problem with this is that, when you add, delete or change anything, your pages are messed up.

Whether you use Microsoft Word or Pages, there is a simple way to create the desired breaks in your pages.

1. Click your cursor where you want the new page to begin.

2. In Pages, click on the Insert menu and choose Page Break.

In Word, click on the Insert menu, choose Break and slide over to select Page Break.

3. A new page will appear.

To delete the page break, click the cursor beyond the page break and press the Delete key.

Now your pages will always be perfect, no matter how you edit.

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Seeing Fonts in the Font Window

We all know that you can change the fonts of text in Mail as well as most other Apple programs by highlighting the text and then clicking on the Fonts tool.

The Fonts window shows a list of grouped fonts (Collections), the family of typefaces, the possible styles of each typeface and a size to choose.

To see what the font actually looks like, you can reveal the Font Preview Pane. There is a barely noticeable circle below the word “Fonts” and above the “T” tool. If you move your mouse onto this circle, it becomes a tool with arrows.

Drag the tool down to reveal the Font Preview Pane.

You can make the entire window bigger by dragging on the the diagonal lines in the bottom right corner of the window.

Now you can see your font choice and decide if it’s the one you want to use.

Too many steps to read and follow?

The ALL ABOUT MAIL Video Training Series SHOWS you how to work with fonts and so much more. Instead of READING the steps, you can WATCH and PRACTICE on your own. Click here for more info.

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Add Your Signature to Emails

A signature automatically appears at the bottom of your email. It can be your name, your contact information, even a favorite quote. You can create several different signatures and choose which one you want for a particular email.

To create a signature:

1. First, create a new email message so you have a place to type
2. Type everything you want to appear, including choosing the font, size, color
3. Highlight it all
4. From the Edit menu, choose Copy
5. Then, under the Mail menu, choose Preferences
6. Click on the Signatures icon
7. Click the “+” sign at the bottom of the middle column to create a new signature
8. Title it in the middle column where it is highlighted in blue
9. In the right column, delete the text that appears there
10. From the Edit menu, choose Paste

Your typed text will appear.

To actually USE the signature, you have to now assign it to an email account.

1. Drag that named signature from the middle column to on top of the email address in the left column that you want to use it with.

2. Click on that email address and, at the bottom, under Choose Signature, decide whether you always want that signature to appear or, if you choose None, then you can select the signature when you want to use it in a particular email.

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Open at Login

If you turn on your computer and always open the same programs when you start, consider having the Mac open them for you.

In the Dock, click and hold down on the icon of the program, click and hold on Options and choose Open at Login.

If you have programs that mysteriously open when you turn on the computer, you probably have accidentally chosen this option.

To turn it off, click and hold on the icon in the Dock click on Options and reselect Open at Login to remove the checkmark.

 

Printing In Black Only

To save ink, consider printing some of your documents in Black Only. It’s called Printing in Grayscale.

Every printer will address this differently, but here are the basic steps to help you find what you’re looking for with your particular printer.

1. From the File menu, choose Print

2. Next to the current choice under the number of pages to print (it may say Layout, or the name of the current program), click to reveal a menu of choices

3. Choose Quality and Media

4. At the bottom of the window, put a check mark next to Grayscale

Forwarding an Email Without All of the Forward Garbage with Apple Mail

When you Forward an email to someone, it includes the previous recipient information. You could highlight it all and then delete it, or,

1. Click on the email

2. From the Message menu, choose Send Again

A new email is created, ready to address, without any of the extraneous information.

If the original email was previously forwarded, it may still contain some of that unwanted text, so be sure to delete it before sending it.

The Missing Keys for Navigation

One of the hardest adjustments former PC users have to make is getting used to the Mac’s keyboard.

Today’s tip addresses the missing navigation keys on Apple’s wireless keyboard.

The Missing Keys for Navigation

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
FORWARD DELETE = FN + delete