Craig Knows Things

Imagine, if you will, you’ve lost an important file. You can’t figure out where you put it. You do however remember its name. What you need now is the ability to run a search.

In OSX it’s quite easy to find a file you’ve lost. Simply click the little magnifying glass at the top right of the screen and type in the file’s name. You are then instantly presented with results.

This instant search technology on a mac is called spotlight. Windows Vista offers a functionality which is similar. Vista’s instant search is located in the start menu. If you’re using Windows XP google offers an excellent instant search application called Google Desktop.

To activate spotlight, as mentioned before, you can click the magnifying class toward the top right of your screen. Alternatively you have the option to press command+spacebar. This opens the spotlight typing area. You can now start typing. Use your arrow keys to select the file you want and then press enter to open the file. Also, you could click on the specific file you want to open.

Another amazing feature spotlight offers is the ability to do math. It can do some fairly simple stuff such as 1+1 but it also has the ability to do some pretty powerful math such as 10! which is the equivalent of 10×9x8×7x6×5x4×3x2×1.

Spotlight also has the ability to look up definitions. For more details about using spotlight check out the following video.

Video Example - Using Spotlight

So you’re using your computer but you can’t be bothered to use that pesky keyboard of yours or maybe your bluetooth ran out of juice. There are many reasons to need to use an onscreen keyboard and here’s how.

• Open System preferences found by clicking the apple at the top right of your computer.



• Choose international in the top row



• Click the Input Menu tab



• Choose the box next to the Keyboard Viewer option

You may now close all open windows.

To access the onscreen keyboard you just enabled click the flag that has appaeared at the top right of your screen and then choose to show the kayboard viewer

Video Example of Enabling the Onscreen Keyboard

Saving a screenshot on the desktop.

• Command+Shift+3: This will take a picture of the entire screen.
• Command+Shift+4: This turns your mouse into a crosshairs. To take the screenshot just click where you’re like to begun your picture, hold the click and drag, let go when you have a rectangle over the area.
• Command+Shift+4, then space: Your mouse will turn into a picture of a camera. The camera will take a screenshot of a window. By pressing space again the camera will turn back into a crosshairs.

Video example of making screenshots

Copying a screenshot to the clipboard.

(The clipboard is the place things go when you copy them, once in the clibboard they can easily be pasted into various programs such as word)

• Command+Control+Shift+3: Take a screenshot of the screen, and save it to the clipboard.
• Command+Control+Shift+4: This turns your mouse into a crosshairs. To take the screenshot just click where you’re like to begun your picture, hold the click and drag, let go when you have a rectangle over the area.
• Command+Control+Shift+4, then space: Your mouse will turn into a picture of a camera. The camera will take a screenshot of a window. By pressing space again the camera will turn back into a crosshairs.

These files will all save in a format called PNG if you’re using Tiger or Leopard. If you’re using Panther it’ll be PDF and if you’re using Jaguar it’ll be JPG.

To choose which file you’d prefer to save them there’s a neat hack.

Open the application called terminal located in the utilities folder which is located in the applications folder.

/Applications/Utilities/Terminal

Type the following two commands into the terminal window and press enter after each:

“defaults write com.apple.screencapture type image_format“

then

“killall SystemUIServer”

 

image_format above can be whatever you’d like it to be; jpg, tiff, pdf, png, bmp and others.

Video Example of Changing the File Type in the Terminal Application

It’s a copyright issue. They think you’re going to be doing things you’re not allowed to. If you really need to however all you need is VLC media player. Start the DVD and take a screenshot when you’re where you want.

For more info on installing and using VLC media player visit this link.

Open up Garageband.

Drag an MP3 file into Garageband.

Choose Share –> Send to Ringtone

It’ll tell you to set this bar thing to be under 30 seconds.

Choose Share –> Send to Ringtone again

It’ll then show up in iTunes under ringtones. Tell your iPhone sync area the sync that ringtone and you’re done! It’s easy to do. Honest.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307108

To keep iPhoto from opening when you plug in your iPhone simply open the program Image Capture which is located in the Applications folder.

Once Image Capture is running choose Preferences.

From Preferences simply change the “iPhoto” option to “No application”.

Tada! :] Close the window and quit out of Image Capture. Now iPhoto shouldn’t open when you plug in your iPhone and it had new pictures. 

Video Example

The concept is as follows:

1. Tell your mac to share things
2. Tell the PC where to go to find the shared things
3. Drag and Drop

Remember, it may be necessary to use \\10.0.0.000\username where you specify where you’re connecting. What should happen is the computer should ask you for a username and password. The username and password you’ll supply is the one you use on your mac.

Now a window should open. This is a folder filled with various folders that are on your mac. You can now easily drag files that are located in folders on your mac into folders that are on your pc and vice versa. Enjoy!

Here’s something I didn’t know. I know it now. -_^

I always figured something like a sleep timer existed but as I’ve learned from my iPhone just because something should exist doesn’t mean it does.

An example being when the iPod application didn’t support lyrics. I LOVE having lyrics on my iPhone why wouldn’t my iPhone do it? It was lame.

Luckily lyrics support came with a software update and I was appeased.

What I discovered last night has probably been there since the beginning. If it wasn’t, than it’s there now. So, if you have the most recent software update you should “take advantage”.

Anyways, I was listening to the iPod and was falling asleep. I decided I wanted the iPod to sleep in 30 or so more mins because I figured by then I’d be asleep myself.

I thought to myself, “How the heck do I do that?”. I figured I wanted the impossible.

Low and behold I decided to check out the clock application anyways.

From inside the clock app there are four options at the bottom of the screen. There’s an option for a world clock, an alarm, a stopwatch, AND a timer! A timer?! Just what I needed.

When I went to check out the timer application I noticed a “When Timer Ends” button. When you choose it you get a list of all your custom ringtones as well as apple’s built in chimes. You also get an option called “sleep ipod”. I chose it set it for 30mins and started to let myself drift off to sleep. 

Obviously my plan wasn’t perfect. I discovered my plan wasn’t perfect at one point during the night when I received a text message. I was alerted through the earphones. Yikes! Perhaps if I use this method again I’ll put the phone in airplane mode. 

Alternatively you would think you’d be able to set an alarm to use the iPod music. You can’t however. I’m sorry.

Let’s write letters! :p

A few simple options;

• Buy / rent them from iTunes
• Watch a DVD
• Rip a DVD to your Mac to watch later
• Visit websites such as Hulu.com

*ripping commercial DVDs is illegal under the DMCA*

HP doesn’t make a printer driver for their 1600 laserjet. It’s quite sad. If you need to use that printer with your mac here’s what you can do. I found the info online and put it into practice myself. It works.

In summary here’s what you need to do.

It’s not exactly perfect and the color looks awful… but it works.

All of the information can be found at, 
http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/O…MacOSX/foo2zjs

In summary 

You’ll need to download:

http://www.openprinting.org/download…zjs-1.1-UB.dmg

http://www.linuxprinting.org/macosx/…3.2.15.ppc.dmg
and
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/g…c.dmg?download

I started by running the installer for ghostscript, then the installer called foomatic-RIP.dmg. 

Lastly I ran the installer foo2zjs. When it finished a terminal window opened and I ran through the instructions listed there. I chose the option for the 1600 and then pressed enter. 

Once all three installers have been ran open up print utility from system utilities. The printer should show up and choose the foomatic driver on it’s own. Once the printer is installed you’ll have b&w printing. 

To enable the icky color go to this web address. http://localhost:631/

choose the printers tab

choose set printer options

under color mode choose color over monochrome. 

Now color printing should work from your HP Color Laserjet 1600. Good luck!