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Mac 101: Backup basics with Time Machine and more
Did you get a new Mac for Christmas? Before you go too far in loading your Mac with software and files, make sure that you have a backup strategy. As a certified Mac consultant, I can tell you that there are two kinds of computer users: those who have lost data through error, hardware failure, or accident, and those who are going to lose data in the future. Most of the bloggers at TUAW are backup fanatics, and many of us have multiple backups using Time Machine (the backup app built into Mac OS X), cloning applications like Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper!, and online backup services like Carbonite, Mozy, and BackBlaze. In this edition of Mac 101, I'll take you through the basics of setting up your Time Machine backup to a local hard drive, explain the power of cloning apps, and tell you why off-site backups are a good idea.
Mac 101: Securing your passwords after the Gawker breach
Thanks to questionable security practices at Gawker Media (publishing parent of many high-profile websites including Gizmodo and Lifehacker), a number of people are busy scrambling to change their passwords on a lot of different sites today. Gawker stored encrypted passwords on its servers instead of password hashes (and stored those passwords using the deprecated DES standard), so as a result of some weekend hacking, a lot of email addresses and passwords were stolen. Gawker Media is asking anyone who uses its comment system to change their password immediately, and if they used the same email address and password on other websites, they should change those passwords as well. If you have used any of the Gawker sites in the past, you can use Slate's Gawker Hack widget to determine if your email address and password was part of the group that was compromised. Some other sites like LinkedIn are proactively disabling the accounts of users who were included in the data dump, requiring them to reset their passwords before they can get back in. Common sense dictates that for the best security, every website account should have a separate password; you should never use a dictionary word, birthday or family name as your password; strong passwords always need a mix of capitals and lowercase letters, numbers and (if acceptable to the service you're logging into) punctuation/non-alphanumerics. (The number of people who used 'password' or '123456' as their comment login in the Gawker system is truly shocking.) However, our puny human brains don't work well with strong passwords; we just can't remember a lot of passwords that are random gibberish, and even using mnemonics and other tricks for password generation can fill up the ol' brain pretty quickly. There are some ways to generate strong passwords that are associated with just one website -- and keep them recorded securely on your Mac or in the cloud -- so click that Read More link to see how.
Mac 101: Changing the default web browser in OS X
Apple introduced the Safari browser in January of 2003. Since then, it's matured to include extensions, an RSS reader and even a Windows counterpart. Still, many users prefer another browser. Since Safari is set as the default on every new Mac, you'll have to make the switch manually. Otherwise, Safari will launch whenever a browser is called for (clicking a link in an email message, for example), instead of your preferred browser. Here's how to change that. First, launch Safari. From the Preferences menu, select General. At the top of the screen you'll see a drop-down labeled "Default Web Browser." Click it, hit Select and then navigate to your choice. That's it. From that point on, your Mac will use your selection as the default. If you're in the habit of switching back and forth between default browsers (for example, to test your website for different users), the $12 Choosy utility may give you the flexibility you need.
Mac 101: The wonderful magical Shift key
Oh that Shift key. So normal, so overlooked, so simple ... and yet so magical. TUAW reader Karan recently dropped us a note, reminding us about its slow-speed enchantment. "I don't think a lot of Mac users know this," he wrote, "but the Shift key has a very cool (although obviously just for extra eye-candy) feature on the Mac." When depressed, the Shift key will slow down certain on-screen animations, giving an extra long visual boost to window transitions. For example, you can shift in the following scenarios: while minimizing an application window to the Dock while clicking the Full Screen button in QuickTime X (or while using a pinch to zoom to full screen) while sliding four fingers down to invoke Exposé while sliding those same four fingers up to "Show the Desktop" while selecting a minimized Dock or Exposé window Karan adds, "The above are the main areas I've found that I can use this neat little Shift trick, and I think it would be fitting of the 'Mac 101' title since I've encountered veteran Mac-users who are unaware of this." TUAW agrees, and here you are. Thanks, Karan
Mac 101: Adjusting your mouse and trackpad speed
More Mac 101, our series of tips and tricks for novice Mac users. If you've ever used the trackpad on a PC laptop connected to an external monitor and noticed how many times you have to swipe your finger across the pad to get the mouse cursor from one screen to the other, the end result can be quite frustrating and tiresome. Of course, the same thing can easily happen if you hook up an external display to your MacBook or iMac, although it usually is not as obvious thanks to the larger surface area that Apple has designed into recent trackpads. Luckily, this can be easily corrected on any Mac in just a few simple clicks. Before we dive into the settings, though, let's talk about what is causing this to happen in the first place. Although we often take it for granted, one of the most astonishing aspects of using a mouse with a computer is the fact that you only have to move your hand by a couple of inches, while the pointer on the screen moves from one end of the screen to the other -- even if the screen is over 20" wide. This feat is accomplished by a simple mathematical conversion being done in the background that measures the distance the mouse (or your finger, if using a trackpad) moves and multiplies that by a specific factor to determine how far -- and in what direction -- to move the cursor on the screen. Read on to find out how to give your mouse (or trackpad) a speed boost.
Mac 101: The two Applications folders
Mac users quickly come to know the /Applications/ directory, where you will find all of the default applications that come with OS X (Safari, Mail, iChat, Preview, iCal and so on), as well as the Utilities folder (/Applications/Utilities/), where more advanced users get to know Activity Monitor, Terminal, Network Utility, Airport Utility, Spaces and more. If you have run an installer -- such as for iLife, iWork, Microsoft Office and so on‚ more than likely that installer has added programs to the /Applications/ folder. The /Applications/ folder is also usually linked to when you mount a disk image (those files that end with .dmg), encouraging you to drag applications to the /Applications/ directory. The Applications folder is also in the sidebar of the Finder. But some other users use a second Applications directory in their Home folder: ~/Applications/. Why keep two separate sets of Applications?
Mac 101: In Mail.app, reply with selected text
More Mac 101, tips and tricks for the novice Mac user. I've been using the Mail app in Mac OS X for a good four or five years now. I thought I pretty much knew most of how to use it, but today I've been pleasantly surprised. I've just stumbled across a nifty little feature that I hadn't known about before, and it's going to make a small, but significant improvement to the way I do email in Mail app. In replying to an email in Mail.app, when you hit the reply button all the text from that email is inserted into the reply message (like all other email clients). However, having just been sifting through a rather complex message & trying to decipher a few key areas, I selected a specific portion of text to copy and insert into the reply message to illustrate and help clarify a few points. This is a practice I usually follow, but in haste, I selected the text I wanted to copy before I'd created the reply message. When I hit the reply button, I suddenly realized that I had a reply message with only the selected text from the previous mail present. If you select text in Mail.app and then hit the reply button, Mail.app will automatically insert the selected text into the reply message whilst leaving everything else behind. This is useful if you want to quote a specific piece of text in a reply message, but not make the recipient trawl through the previous conversations to get there (and it saves you cutting and pasting the text, too). I'm sure this is quite obvious to veteran Mac users, but that's why this is a Mac 101; for new Mac users, and those slightly less proficient with email, it's a little tip to make your email experience that much more pleasant. Let us know if you have any helpful tips for using Mail.app in the comments below.
Mac 101: Autocomplete words in TextEdit
More Mac 101, our series of tips and tricks for novice Mac users. For those with modest text-editing needs, Apple's TextEdit is a great choice. Did you know that it's got an autocomplete option? David Mendels points out how it works at Mac OS X Hints. As you're typing a long word, hit the escape key. A popup window will appear with a list of guesses. Use the arrow keys to find the word you want and hit enter to select. To shorten the list, keep typing. To abandon the list entirely, hit escape again to put it away. That's a nice little tip! Thanks, David. [Via Minimal Mac]
Mac 101: What's happening when your Mac is starting up?
Recently, in the interest of sleeping soundly through the night, I've been turning off my 27" iMac every night. No, I'm not doing this for energy conservation, but the darned thing used to light up at random intervals in the middle of the night. Since I now have to power up the iMac every morning, I see the bootup process regularly. You know how it goes. First you hear the startup chime, then you see that gray screen, then the gray screen with the Apple logo and spinning gear on it, then a light blue screen, and finally a login window or the desktop appears. What's actually going on while all of this is showing up on your screen? Well, as those of us who have gone through the training and tests to become Apple Certified Support Professionals are aware, each of those visual cues is an indication that a milestone in the bootup process has been reached. Follow along as I take you on a tour behind the scenes of the Mac OS X boot process, starting on the next page.
Mac 101: Use Archive Utility preferences for control over archives
Most users know that you can easily create .zip files in OS X by selecting a file in Finder and choosing File » Compress "FileNameHere" or by control+clicking the file and choosing the same option from the context menu. You can open .zip (and other archive formats such as gzip, tar, and bzip2) simply by double clicking on them. You may not have known that additional options are available. For example, after you make a .zip file, you could have the original files moved to the trash automatically, or you could have all .zip files that you create automatically saved to the same folder. Similarly, you can have all archive files that you expand open to the same directory as the archive, or have them saved to a specific folder. The feature that I was looking for was this: after I expand an archive, just move the original file to the trash so I don't have to, because I don't want to keep it. If the default settings work for you, great! But if you'd like a bit more control, there are two ways to do it. (Note: these system paths are current for Snow Leopard. Previous versions of Mac OS X may be different. See note at bottom of this message.)
Mac 101: Making a fancy signature in Mail.app
I was leafing through some emails this afternoon and came upon one with an extremely attractive signature block. So attractive, in fact, that I promptly stopped doing the writing I was working on and decided to create my own new signature to replace the ugly one I had been using. I wanted to have three major components to the signature: my name in color so that it stood out, links to the websites that describe my work (TUAW being one of those sites), and the ever-popular links to my Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages. The final product looks like this: It's nothing too fancy, but it provides links to the locations that are important to me and also to the social networking sites I use. So what's the secret to doing this? Easy - use a blank new message as your canvas for creating the signature you want, and then copy and paste it into a new signature block in Mail preferences. Follow along as I create this signature block.
Mac 101: Keyboard tricks for Finder navigation
You may know that you can expand and collapse Finder folders in a tree view using the left and right arrow keys. But did you know that you can expand or collapse all of the root-level folders at once? It's a cool trick that can save you a lot of time when navigating your Mac's files. With the Finder window focused (click anywhere inside the file view), just type Command-A to select all, then use the left or right arrow to collapse or expand all of the folders simultaneously. Neat, right? You can also expand a folder recursively (expand all of its child folders) by selecting it and holding down the Option key when you click the triangle next to it (or press the right arrow key when the folder is selected). This works in reverse for collapsing, too. You can also drill down into a folder with Command-Down Arrow, and back up to the parent folder with Command-Up Arrow. Now, not to blow your mind or anything, but you can combine two of the tricks above: select all (Command-A), and then hold down the Option key while you hit the right arrow key to expand every folder in the view, and every folder inside of those folders, and every folder inside of those folders.... If your hard drive is anything like mine, you just made a fine mess of your Finder window. Normally, you can quickly jump to files in the list by typing the first few letters of their name, but good luck finding anything quickly when all of your folders are expanded. Reverse the process by selecting all and using Option-Left Arrow to restore sanity. Now, use Command-Space to open Spotlight and enjoy the relief of having the file you were looking for in that folder hierarchy (mess) just appear with a couple of keystrokes!
Mac 101: Inserting or typing uncommon characters
As a Mac consultant, I'm often asked some pretty bizarre questions. One that I frequently hear is "How do I type <some special character> on my Mac?" A good example of this is people who want to type fractions that look like this -- ½ -- rather than like 1/2, or plop a character like an umbrella -- ☂ -- or a skull and crossbones -- ☠ -- in the middle of a sentence. It's actually quite easy to do this, although finding these uncommon characters isn't something that's readily apparent, especially to new Mac users. Follow along as I show you how to insert or type characters that won't be found on your keyboard.
Mac 101: Open new tabs to reveal browsing history in Safari
Safari's Top Sites feature is nifty and all, but what I've really wanted to do is have new Safari tabs open showing me my recent browsing history. I couldn't figure out a way to do this until just now. Maybe if you're an experienced Safari user this is obvious, but I'm still a fairly recent Safari adopter. If you look in Safari's preferences, it will show that new tabs can be set to Top Sites, Home Page, Empty Page, Same Page, or Bookmarks. There's no "History" option. The good news is that you can work around this by choosing Bookmarks (as shown above), and then click on History (under Collections) at the top-left of the window. Safari remembers what you had selected in the Bookmarks window, so whenever you open a new tab, it will open to the Bookmarks with the History selected. You could also do this by setting new tabs to open to an Empty Page, and then press Command+Option+2 (Show All History). If you find that key combination too awkward, as I do, you can reassign it in System Preferences under Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts. Personally, I like this because I can use Command+T to open a new tab and have the history show up right away. I'd still prefer to be able to use the History view, which is shown if you start with Top Sites, and then click the History half of the button-tab at the top of that window, but this is the next best thing.
Mac 101: Preparing your old Mac for sale or recycling
It happens to all of us eventually (except for the Mac collectors). At some point, we decide that it's time to take that old Mac that we've just replaced and try to get a few bucks out of it. Some of us donate our machines to schools or other worthwhile organizations, and if we have really old equipment, we may just recycle it. In any case, there are some things you'll want to do to prepare the Mac for sale or recycling. Step One: Make sure everything is backed up There's nothing worse than nuking the hard drive on a computer and then realizing that you've just destroyed irreplaceable photos, documents, or recordings. Even if you're using Time Machine to back up your Mac onto an external hard disk drive, I recommend going through your important directories -- Applications, Documents, Downloads, Photos, Music, and Movies -- to make sure that everything has either been migrated to your new Mac or is available from a backup. I'm so paranoid that I usually keep the Time Machine backup and a secondary backup (usually made with Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!) for a while, even after I've switched machines. Click the Read More link to learn more about how to get that old Mac ready for sale. Photo by Flickr user sfllaw, licensed under Creative Commons
Mac 101: Use the keyboard to navigate a Grid from the Dock
When I first got my Mac, it came with all the standard applications found in the applications folder. I used to find that opening an application from the applications Grid, on the Dock, was much easier and quicker than opening an application through the Finder. Over time, with more applications being installed on my computer, my applications Grid became larger and larger. Instead of seeing a small bunch of icons that I could easily recognize and navigate, I literally had dozens of icons on my applications Grid. This made it very difficult to distinguish the one application that I was looking for. It was like looking at a sea of multi-colored icons that were all blurring into one. Maybe you know what I'm talking about? Naturally, I had my most used applications accessible directly from the Dock, but for all of my other applications, I started using the Finder or Spotlight to locate and launch them instead. That is, until a friend showed me an obvious way to navigate a Grid and launch an application very quickly.
Mac 101: Use Preview to display a slideshow (update)
Over the weekend I went to visit some relatives I haven't seen for some time. As is required by such family gatherings, I brought a large number of photographs to share with them. I planned to show the photographs on my MacBook, which has recently been refurbished, but hasn't had iPhoto reinstalled on it. Running late, I didn't have time to install it as planned. As a last resort, I thought I'd just show the photos using Quick Look and scroll through them in full screen. When I eventually got round to showing off my photos (you know, that rather drowsy time just after dinner), I realized that Quick Look won't let you scroll through items when in full screen, let alone do a slideshow (which would be pretty useful). However, you can resize the Quick Look window to almost full screen. Well, to say the least, with hundreds of photos to get through, people already getting bored, my finger hurting from scrolling and my wife giving me the look that says "I told you so," I began to wish I had made the time to reinstall iPhoto. There was no internet access either, so I couldn't even download something like Picasa. At that point my cousin strolled into the room and said, "That must be taking you ages, why don't you just do a slideshow using Preview?" He then selected all the photos in the folder, right clicked and selected 'Open With Preview.' With the Preview app open, he selected 'View' from the menu bar and then 'Slideshow.' It was that simple. Thankfully, I was able to leave the photos to display themselves. People could watch as much or as little as they wanted, when they felt like it (the way such photo exhibitions should be!). You can check out more things to do with Preview at this Apple support page. Update: A few bright commenters have pointed out that you can, in fact, do a slideshow using Quick Look. First, select more than one photo, then hit the space bar or the Quick Look button. By selecting more than one photo the slideshow options will appear in the Quick Look window. Thanks!
Mac 101: Comprehensive Mac system information
More Mac 101, our series of tips and tricks for novice Mac users. Last week we pointed out some documents Apple has made available for storing important information on your Mac. Information that you might need when talking to a repair tech or Apple Genius. In that post, TUAW reader Tom pointed out another way to generate a thoroughly comprehensive report of similar information without all that pesky "writing." Basically, it's a printout of all the information that's stored in System Profiler. Here's how to do it. From the Apple Menu, select About this Mac. A new window appears. Click More Info to launch System Profiler. From there, select print and watch as your Mac prepares the System Profiler info for printing. You'll notice that it's taking a long, long time. That's because there's a huge amount of information being compiled. Aside from the basics that we addressed last time, it's grabbing every error log entry, vitals on every app you've got installed, network information and a whole heck of a lot more. When I ran this report the resulting document was 2.7MB and 500 pages! So don't print. Unless you're at work. I kid! Instead, you can save to PDF, encrypt it with a tool like Knox and store it in a safe location. Note that some of the information will change between the time you create the file and when you're likely to need it, like the list of installed apps and log reports. Also, Apple's forms make it much easier to get to the information you're likely share with a tech. Finally, much of the information in this report is sensitive and you'll want to keep it away from less-than-savory characters. It's overkill, but someday you might need something in that report to revive an ailing machine.
Mac 101: Keep all your service info close to hand
More Mac 101, our series of tips and tricks for novice Mac users. As reliable and fantastic as your Mac is, chances are it will occasionally need service. When you're speaking with a representative on the phone or standing at the Genius Bar with your lovely, you'll be asked to provide some basic information, like the model, OS and so on. That's the easy stuff we know off the top of our heads. Other specifics, like serial number, the kind of processor, the date of purchase and so on are harder to remember. Fortunately, Apple has produced some cheat sheets that you can print, fill out and store away until they're needed. There are three documents available: "My Mac Hardware," "My Mac OS X Software and my Apple ID," and "My Internet Connection." Print them, fill them out and keep them stashed somewhere safe. It'll only take a minute and when you need them, you'll be glad they're there.
Mac 101: Adding screenshots to Stickies
More Mac 101, our series of tips and tricks for novice Mac users. Here's a great tip from Mac OS X Hints about an old, old Mac utility. Stickies has been around since the System 7 days, and it provides a super-simple way to store quick bits of information. Did you know that, with Snow Leopard, you can also use it to store screenshots? Well, you can, and it's simple to do. With a sticky note open, right-click or control-click on the note to bring up the contextual menu. You'll see "Capture Selection from Screen." Select it to bring up the screen capture tool, drag the cursor around the area you want to snap, and you're done! The screenshot will be inserted into that note. This only works with the Stickies app, not the Dashboard widget. We love finding little tips like this, and we hope you find it useful.
