Posted by Charlie V.

If you’re like me, when you work at your computer you like to have everything set a certain way. You like windows to open in a certain view, Safari bookmarks to be in place, mail accounts to be synced and your favorite applications placed neatly in the dock. If you’re the only one to use your Mac, you’ll know all of these items above won’t change unless you alter them, but what if multiple people use the same Mac? Does everything have to be mixed together in one convoluted mess? Absolutely not!

Just like in earlier Windows versions many of you are used to, you can enable multiple users on your Mac. In System Preferences, under the System heading, select Accounts. A new windows will open allowing to add and delete user accounts as you please (note: only Administrative users can add/delete accounts). Once you have your desired accounts setup, your Mac automatically creates a User folder for each person to store all of their unique data. I also encourage you to activate Fast User Switching to quickly jump between accounts on the computer. In the Accounts window in System Preferences, select Login Options, and enable Fast User Switching. The current users name will appear on the top right of the toolbar, and when you click on it, you’ll get a list of every user on the Mac. Simply click the desired user and enter their password to go straight to the new account.

Multiple users can also give you a Login screen when you initially startup the computer, which allows users to select their custom account from the beginning, and not interfere with other users settings and documents.

Parents, one more advantage to multiple users is your ability to administer parental controls to your kid’s accounts. You can set computer use times, block websites, monitor their activity, and even pick which applications they have access to! All of these useful features can be found in the Parental Controls window of System Preferences.

-Charlie

Posted by Charlie V.

Have you ever created a document that you had to send to numerous people? Chances are some of the recipients might not have the application you created your document in, and you also risk the fear of formatting issues between computers, and giving people the ability to alter your content.

There is an easy solution that solves every problem listed, and its easy to do, send a PDF! PDF (stands for Portable Document Format) files can be created in any Mac OS X application that allows you to print. When your document is ready, select File > Print, and then click the PDF ▼ button in the lower left corner. Select Save as PDF, and simply save the file to your desired location. All of your text, pictures, and other data are preserved on the digital page just how you want it, and the file cannot be altered easily by recipients when you send it off!

-Charlie

Posted by Charlie V.

In part 2 of this backup blog, I’d like to talk about a fantastic system recovery application called SuperDuper!. SuperDuper! differs from Time Machine in the fact that it creates a fully bootable backup of your system, which is ideal if you have a dreaded hard disk failure and need to completely start over with a SuperDuper! is a breeze. You can choose to have the application take control and backup as often as you’d like, and the bootable image can be moved as one convenient (although sometimes large) file from one storage media to the next.

One convenient feature is the built in smart updater, which recognizes changes that you’ve made to your system since your last backup. SuperDuper! focuses on these changes, and can add them to your backup image without starting all over, which allows backups to happen quickly, and ensure you that all of your latest changes have been saved securely.

In researching both Time Machine and SuperDuper!, I have found that while they are both backup applications, they are even better compliment applications. Time Machine is great because of its instant search-ability, and its integration into the OS, where SuperDuper! shines at being bootable in case of hardware failure, and gives users that one image file containing all of their backup information.

Whatever method you choose, you’re doing a wise thing by backing up. As I said before, any system backup is better than nothing!

-Charlie

Posted by Charlie V.

While some methods are more detailed than others, any system backup is better than nothing. Whether it’s occasionally burning family photos and your music library to CD or employing a robust backup program, the peace of mind knowing your files are safe when your hard drive crashes is priceless. Notice I said when your hard drive crashes, not if your hard drive crashes; it will happen to everyone sometime, I’ve already fallen victim! Luckily, there are things we can do. Most take minimal time (only minutes to set up), and then run themselves as often as you want. I’m going to touch base on two of the most popular backup programs for Mac OS X users today, Time Machine and SuperDuper. 

Time Machine comes standard with Mac OS X.5 Leopard, and is by far the most elegant and easy to use backup system I’ve ever come across… once it was set up. You need to be aware of the system requirements before using Time Machine, including an external hard drive (big enough to hold all of your system files), Airport Extreme (if you want to backup wirelessly) and obviously, Leopard.

Once you have all the required items for Time Machine, and have your external backup hard drive mounted on your desktop, simply start the application in System Preferences [System Preferences > Time Machine > Turn switch to ON]. You can set time machine to backup as often as you’d like, and the advantage to this application over other backups is the ability to view archived documents on the fly without mounting any old disk images, and you can even search your backups with Spotlight! All of this data storage can fill up fast, so I recommend buying the largest backup hard drive in your budget (You can find 500GB hard drives for under $150!). You can set Time Machine to not back up certain files and folders if you wish through system preferences, which can save a great deal of time and hard disk space, but when it comes to back up files, the more the merrier! Next time, I’ll discuss a popular ‘clone’ backup system, SuperDuper.

-Charlie

Posted by Charlie V.

If you’re an iCal user, you know that there are three common ways to view your events and to-do items, day view, week view and month view. What if you wanted to switch between these quickly without taking your hands off the keyboard? You can with these useful keyboard shortcuts!

CMD⌘ + 1    Switch to Day view

CMD⌘ + 2    Switch to Week view

CMD⌘ + 3    Switch to Month view

CMD⌘ + R Arrow    Advance to next day, week or month, depending on your current view

CMD⌘ + L Arrow    Move to previous day, week or month, depending  on your current view

CMD⌘ + OPTION + (numberkey 1-7)    Can display multiple multiple days at once, select how many days you want to view at a time, and press that number key

CMD⌘ + N    Create a new event

CMD⌘ + K    Create a new to do

Enjoy!

-Charlie

Posted by Charlie V.

Today more than ever, Apple has one of the most innovative and diverse line of consumer Macs. While choice is great, in this case, it demands the need for close comparison shopping, and requires that you estimate how you’ll use your Mac in the future. Thinking ahead about your life with your new Mac before buying could be the smartest pre-purchase decision you make!

The first question is hopefully an easy one… “Desktop or notebook?” Do you have the need for a portable computer from time to time? Are you always in the same place when using your computer? Do you usually have a lot of peripherals plugged into your machine (i.e. printers, scanners, barcode readers, Audio equipment, etc.)? Does your job demand a lot of screen real estate (i.e. more than a notebook can deliver)? Do you use a lot of graphic and processor intensive applications? Answers to these questions will hopefully lean you towards one or the other. However, our friends at Apple have made this choice even more difficult with the new super-powered line of aluminum Macbook and Macbook Pro’s. With new NVIDIA graphics chips, and Apple’s release of a 24″ LED display just for notebook users, the ‘desktop experience,’ can easily be produced from a portable machine!

The next question to ask is, “What must my new Mac have?” One word of caution before jumping on a new notebook or any other Mac for that matter, is make sure it will have all of the ports and functionality you’ll want out of the box! One example is Apple’s deletion of the FireWire port on the new 13″ Macbook (FireWire 800 is still available on the Pro models). You may already use FireWire for a fast external HD or plugging in a DV camcorder, so unless you also want to buy all new gadgets, FireWire is a must! Also, the omission of an optical drive in the Macbook Air could be a deal breaker for those who have to burn and read discs often, and don’t want to carry around an external drive (as it would defeat the purpose of being ultra-portable).

I have also found that spending a little more money up front can save you a lot of time and money later. For example, choosing a higher-level processor on your new Mac will not only boost daily performance, but increase the shelf life of the machine. Also don’t underestimate your RAM and hard drive needs. 1GB of RAM is my new minimum, and 120GB of storage is less than some people’s music and picture libraries! Lastly, if there’s a graphics card upgrade available for the Mac you choose, get it! Many people underestimate the importance of their graphics chip, and this hurts both performance and ability. Many times, $150 will give you a desirable graphics boost (although graphics chips can run in the thousands of dollars on Mac Pro models!).

And we cannot forget price. Just for fun, I encourage you to visit the online Apple store and configure a 3.2 GHz Intel Quad-Core Mac Pro with 32GB of RAM, 1.2 TB of super fast 15,000 RPM HD’s, an NVIDIA Quadro FX5600 graphics card powering two 30″ cinema display, two internal SuperDrive’s, and an internal RAID (whew!). Not only would you have the most powerful consumer desktop on the market today (this thing would out-perform many businesses servers!), you would be spending a whopping $25,000+! Instead of showing up for a funeral in an F1 car, shop wisely without overlooking other options. Today’s iMac’s are extremely quick and capable machines, and you’ll be out of the door at least $1K cheaper than a Mac Pro  (and the gorgeous display is included!). As someone who always used to buy Pro model desktops, I learned that if I wanted to upgrade as often as I do (every few years), I was really throwing my money away. With a new 24″ iMac at home, I can still edit movies and music, and still crash airplanes in my X-Plane flight simulator with stunning clarity. There hasn’t been one moment where I wish I had a Pro desktop since my iMac. I’ve learned there’s a reason why Apple puts the word ‘Pro,’ in certain product names, it’s their demographic! 

So have fun shopping for that shiny new Mac. One of my favorite things is opening up my new Mac, as Apple even makes the packaging an elegant experience. Enjoy!

-Charlie

Posted by Charlie V.

A co-worker filled me in on a very useful tool for all iPhone users who have software update 2.0 or higher. You can capture a screenshot that is saved to your pictures folder at anytime on the iPhone by holding down the power button and then pressing and releasing the center ‘Home’ button. The screen will flash white for a split second, and then return to normal, telling you that the screenshot has been taken, and the picture is saved to your camera library. View any of your screenshots instantly from your iPhone photo library, or import them to your computer on your next sync and view them there.

Why is this useful? I have found this to be a very nice alternative to the copy/paste function that is unfortunately missing on the iPhone. If there is a phone # on a website I want to remember, or an address in Google Maps that I want to save later, I can snap a quick screenshot, and know the information is quickly available to me the next time I need it. Cut and paste would be great, but until then I’ve found this to be the next best thing.

Now you can have fun snapping pictures with both the built-in camera AND the screenshot technique! Enjoy!

-Charlie

Posted by Charlie V.

A common question I receive from both customers and friends is, “How often should I shut down my Mac?” The answer to this question depends on your usage, software and whether you’re using a desktop or laptop computer (everyone’s different!). 

First, lets define the two extremes; those who shut down religiously every night, and those who never shut down. Those who shut down every night tout the energy conservation, the opportunity to let fans and other moving components rest and cool down, and the benefits of running the machine the next day on a fresh startup. Those who always keep their machine running appreciate the chance for updates to complete while they’re away from their machine, the ‘instant on,’ functionality they have when they sit down at the machine, and their ability to keep files and folders open on the desktop for convenient access the next day.

Now for some facts before divulging a few solutions…

1. Mac OS X sleep works by shutting down every core sub-system of the OS except for the memory manager, which allows for conservation of recent documents and applications, and a really fast ‘refresh’ time

2. Never shutting down and never logging out of your computer will eventually lead to very large system swap files which can cause computer lag time

3. Your Mac will prompt you when OS X needs to restart (mostly following a software update)

4. Never letting your Mac shut down or sleep does put strain on your fans, drives, and power supply

5. Shutting down saves more energy than simply logging out or putting a computer to sleep

So, what should you do? I recommend a healthy mix of sleep and shut down’s (no extremes!). Use your Energy Saver settings in System Preferences to allow your computer to sleep after 30min (or so) of inactivity. Also, at night I highly recommend logging out of your machine (Go to  > Log Out [your username]) to help manage swap file sizes. Logging back in the next day will be much faster than a cold startup and you’ll still reap the benefits of a quicker machine! A general rule of thumb is if you won’t use your Mac within a 48 hour timeframe (i.e. over a weekend), completely shut down, giving your Mac some time to really sleep. Laptop users hopping from place-to-place, simply closing the lid and letting your Mac sleep is just fine. If you notice some unusually slow lag-time in your Mac and other odd behavior, restart for safe keeping. And like I said above, your Mac is good at letting you know when it needs to restart because of software updates, etc. Following these practices should help you have a happy Mac!

-Charlie

Posted by Charlie V.

OS X Leopard’s native e-mail application (Apple Mail ver. 3.5) has been beefed up in ways that many people never explore. One such addition is Mail’s built-in RSS reader. RSS (which stands for Really Simple Syndication 2.0) feeds are an excellent way to keep up with blogs, posts, and website updates that occur very frequently. For example, Apple has it’s own, “Hot News,” RSS feed that tell you all the latest happenings and press releases from our favorite company in Cupertino, CA. I also have RSS subscriptions to our very own PCLive blog, popular news sites, and my favorite sports teams. 

Before Leopard, I had all of these RSS feeds bookmarked and saved in Safari, and would frequently make trips out to the WWW to visit and check on these blogs and posts. That was then… Now, Mail checks for updates for me, and I can read all of my favorite feeds just as easy as I read e-mail! Mail even gives you an indicator number letting you know how many new posts are on the RSS feed since you read last.

Subscribing to an RSS feed in Mail is very simple. If you’re reading an RSS feed in Safari, along the right side of the window under the ACTIONS list, you can select “Subscribe in Mail.” Mail will then create an RSS drop menu in the left-hand column beneath your e-mail folders. Straight from Mail you can also push the + icon in the lower left of the screen and click “Add RSS Feeds.” You can then copy a web-link from your desired RSS feed.

Soon you’ll be notified on new RSS posts just as easy as a new e-mail; No more searching and web-browsing for the information you want on a daily basis. So, that warm feeling you get every time you receive a new e-mail… imagine how you’ll feel with 30 new RSS posts to read!

Need help setting up your RSS Feed or anything else Mac? Help is just a call or click away with PCLive.com + Mac!

-Charlie

Posted by Charlie V.

“Does my Mac even have a tilde key?” The answer is yes! Previously a mystery, once I learned the magical uses of this lonely keyboard button, I pulled out my feather broom, and promptly removed the dust from this untraveled corner of my keyboard. I’d like to share two learned uses of the tilde key both in switching applications and moving between open windows in an application.

A common shortcut among Mac users is the CMD + TAB method of switching between open applications. Holding down CMD + TAB will bring up a horizontal window showing all currently running applications. To switch to another app., simply continue pressing TAB until you’ve highlighted the desired icon, and then let go of the CMD key and voila! This method works great, but what if you happen to have eight open applications like I do right now, and you TAB past the application you want to switch to? Before I thought I’d have to go through the whole list again, being very careful to land on the right icon the second time around. Then I discovered tilde! The tilde key lays right above the TAB key next to the number 1 (Just look for the ~ sign). Once you’ve pushed CMD + TAB to open the application switcher, you can use ~TILDE to scroll backwards in the application list (just keep your finger on CMD). Now you’ll be switching apps forwards and backwards, navigating through numerous apps with ease!

Another great use for ~TILDE is in any application that has multiple open windows. For example, say you’re doing some intense web surfing, and you have three Safari windows open. To find a window hidden behind others, you could of collapse each window one-by-one to find the one you want, or use Expose. Even more efficient is holding down CMD and pressing the ~TILDE key until you’ve found your desired window. This has quickly turned into my preferred method of finding windows in applications, and saves me a great deal of time over the alternative methods.

I encourage you to take your ~TILDE key for a spin, and enjoy its efficient benefits!

-Charlie