GettingStarted
Latest
Mystery Motorola Droid (Shadow?) spotted with Verizon branding, set to be starting somethin'
Why hello there... you. Over at the HowardForums, a certain "wnrussell" has uploaded a picture of what looks to be a Getting Started manual for a Verizon-bound Motorola Droid that we can't recall ever seeing before. There's unfortunately no other information provided at the moment, except maybe a hint from the filename: Shadow. Is this the same 4.3-inch phone we've been seeing rumored for some time now? At any rate, we gotta say, this is a pretty attractive device -- and if that's a new hue for Motoblur, we're all for it. Now how about pulling out a secret slide-out keyboard to make our lives complete... [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
iPad 101: User Guides and other helpful resources
You've bought your iPad. Congratulations! So are you ready to learn all the ways you can get the most from your new purchase? Here's a quick run-down of some indispensable resources as you're getting up to speed with your new purchase. Read the manuals: The iPad User Guide (pdf) provides an in-depth review. This user manual is not included in the iPad packaging. Instead, Apple hosts it on its support site. This 154-page long (!) guide covers all the basics for using the iPad and understanding how it works. If you'd like to convert this PDF-formatted guide into a format (called "ePub") that you can use to read on your iPad, there's a handy website called epub2go that will handle the conversion for you. After transforming the file to epub, just drop it onto your iTunes library and sync it to your iPad. You'll be able to read the book using Apple's free iBooks application. It won't look as nice as a standard ePub document, but you'll have it in mobile form. Take a guided video tour: Apple has posted videos that introduce many of the iPad's new features, including Safari, Mail, Photos, iPod, and more. You can watch these videos to get an idea of how each of these features work, and pick up a few pointers along the way. These aren't really meant as tutorials; they are marketing videos, but they can also work to introduce the iPad to you. Read our iPad 101 series: TUAW regularly posts tips and tricks for new users via our 101 posting series. In addition to the iPad, we often post Mac 101 and iPhone 101 hints, suitable for those just getting started with a new platform. These write-ups help introduce new concepts and don't assume that you're already an expert.
Getting started with WordPress and MAMP on your Mac
WordPress is among the more popular blog publishing and content management systems available. Some web hosting providers, such as GoDaddy and DreamHost, provide a relatively seamless and integrated WordPress installation process built into their dashboards. However, if you'd like to dip your toes into the WordPress waters and learn what lurks beneath it, but aren't yet ready to make a web hosting commitment (or switch, if your host currently doesn't support it) you can get you feet wet using MAMP.
Getting started with Times, an RSS reader for everyone
Most RSS readers on the desktop look like lists. Times, a reader Mat covered last year, looks like a newspaper. In a "normal" RSS reader, the river of information can become a blur and users may be put off by the incessant noise. Times, on the other hand, aims to make feeds more pleasant to peruse. Check out the gallery to see the curled edges, slight texturing on the sides of the "paper" and page effects. It's the app I'd get my grandmother to use to read RSS feeds, and I think it's a great introduction to feed reading for "the rest of us." Here's how to get started.When you click on a story's headline or body text, the page folds down, and you read. When you're done, you click the folded page and it pops back up to reveal the feeds again. Added to this basic "graze and read" functionality seen on all RSS readers is the shelf (something many readers have as well, like the clippings in NetNewsWire), a place to temporarily hold stories you are interested in. You can read these later and then throw them out. Times isn't intended to be a storage locker or book reader -- it is designed for quick scanning and reading. Likewise, the shelf is only so large and can be set to automatically clear itself at certain intervals.The first thing you'll want to do with Times is customize the feeds. Especially if you are setting this up for someone else (like grandma), you can easily remove the pre-configured feeds and add your own. I recommend not adding dozens of feeds to Times. While power users may scan hundreds of sites, the average person may only make time for a few. NetNewsWire and other readers are better equipped to serve the sort of information overload of a "power reader" and I've included a shot of Feeds and NetNewsWire for comparison in the gallery. Times is designed for some "light" feed reading and aims to make the process more pleasant, not powerful. I recommend no more than 6-8 per category page.Next I'll show you exactly how to set up your own category pages and fill those in with feeds. Then I'll show how to use the shelf and sharing tools. %Gallery-50029%
Getting started with Quicksilver: understanding the basics
Prompted by a TUAW reader comment on my post the other day about some Quicksilver fundamentals, I thought I would take a crack at posting some short tutorials on what Quicksilver actually does, and how to get started with it. I'm talking about the most basic of the basics here for anyone who is curious but still confused as to what the heck they're looking at the first time they launch Quicksilver. To anyone who can't make heads or tails of it: I don't blame you. It took me quite a while to wrap my head around all this stuff, so I hope I can do you some justice with this post.Disclaimer - I use a somewhat modified version of Quicksilver and I've added a lot of extras, but for this demo I *think* I've properly fixed my copy to look like a default Quicksilver install.Speaking of my screenshot - let's get started.
