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In America, the greatest freedom of all is the freedom to be different. Keep thinking differently.

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News, Views, & 'How-tos'

7/01/2009
iPhoto 09 for Mac OS X: Working with Faces
By Adam Engst
The most important addition to iPhoto '09 is Faces, which can detect faces in photos and, after you've trained it by identifying a person in a number of photos, automatically recognize that person's face in other photos. Adam Engst shows you how to use this addictive tool.
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iTunes and You
By Christopher Breen
To best understand what makes the iPod’s world turn, you must be familiar with how it and iTunes 8 work together to move music (as well as pictures, videos, and games, in the case of some recent iPods) on and off your iPod. In this article, you’ll see just that.
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Running Automator Workflows from Mail Rules
Automator doesn't offer a way to save workflows as plug-ins for Mail. But you can add this capability yourself with the help of a Mail rule, some AppleScript, and an Automator workflow. Just follow these instructions from Ben Waldie, author of Automator for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide.
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iDVD: Putting it All Together
From The Macintosh iLife 09 by Jim Heid
"iDVD lets you burn movies and photos to DVDs, complete with menus you can fully customize.
Designers and photographers can use iDVD to assemble digital portfolios that they can hand out like brochures. Filmmakers and advertising professionals can distribute rough cuts of movie scenes and commercials to clients and colleagues. Businesspeople can create in-house training discs and video archives of corporate meetings. Videographers can offer DVDs of weddings and other events. And home-movie buffs can preserve and share family videos and photographs.
Creating a DVD involves choosing and customizing a menu design and adding the movies and photos you want to include on the DVD. You can perform these steps in any order and preview your work along the way. When youve finished, you can commit the final product to a shiny platter."
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Essential Mac Skills for the IT Professional
By Ryan Faas
"Let's face it, finding and keeping an IT job is becoming more competitive daily; that's why Ryan Faas, author of Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server Unleashed, has created tips to increase your value by adding essential Mac IT skills to your repertoire. From obtaining core certifications to understanding Apple's underlying technology and mastering Mac OS X Server and Open Directory, Ryan provides insights and links to help you gain knowledge to stay current and broaden your professional skill set."
 


5/04/2009
Individually Looping Through Files in an Automator Workflow
Ben Waldie points out a limitation with Automator's Loop action: There's no built-in way to perform individual file looping. But don't panic! He also shows how to close this gap by using third-party workarounds.
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3/20/2009
AppleScript and Automator: What's the Difference?
If you're an avid Mac user, you've probably heard of two technologies that seem sort of alike: Automator and AppleScript. Ben Waldie points out the differences and similarities in the two technologies, explaining when to use each one to save yourself some keystrokes (and headaches).
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Making the Genius in iTunes 8 Even Smarter
The iTunes Genius feature promises to deliver smarter playlists of your music with a single click and help you find new music that matches your personal tastes. But Genius is only as good as the information iTunes has about your music. Ryan Faas explains how you can make Genius smarter by ensuring that iTunes has all the information it needs about the songs in your library.
 


2/16/2009
The Top Three Windows/Mac Client Management Options
Managing large numbers of workstations is a challenge at the best of times, but when you have to manage a mix of both PCs and Macs, it can become a massive headache. However, with the right tools, you can develop a single and easy to manage approach that works for both platforms. Multi-platform design expert Ryan Faas can help you figure it all out.
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1/28/2009
Take Control of Fonts in Leopard
Two New Ebooks from TidBITS
"Ithaca, NYManaging fonts in Mac OS X is all too often like herding cats, but users can now corral their fonts with a new ebook, "Take Control of Fonts in Leopard" (TidBITS, $15.00), and its sidekick, "Take Control of Font Problems in Leopard" (TidBITS, $10.00).

Written by font expert Sharon Zardetto, who has been publishing top-tier content about the Mac since 1984, these up-to-date ebooks cover not only the versions of Leopard up through 10.5.5, but also special font situations in software such as Adobe CS3 and CS4, Microsoft Office 2004 and 2008, iLife, iWork, and Safari. The ebooks may be purchased for $15 and $10 respectively, or in a bundle for $20 at http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/leopard-fonts.html.

"Take Control of Fonts in Leopard" covers topics such as:
  • Making the most of character-rich Unicode fonts.
  • The ins and outs of different font installation methods.
  • Using Font Book to manage, validate, and organize fonts.
  • Where fonts reside and in what order they load, and what--if anything--you should do about it.
  • Organizing fonts from Adobe CS3 and CS4 so they appear when and where you want them.
  • The quirks of fonts installed by Microsoft Office 2004 and 2008, and which ones you should keep. - Using Apple's Character Palette and Keyboard Viewer to insert and explore special characters.

"Take Control of Font Problems in Leopard" answers questions such as:
  • Where do fonts belong on my hard drive?
  • In what order do fonts load, and what if I have multiple copies?
  • How do I use Safe Mode to troubleshoot a font problem?
  • How do I use another user account to troubleshoot a font problem?
  • How do I move a font file that doesn't want to move?
  • Why does bold and italic text look double-printed in Word?
  • Why does a font's name have brackets around it in the InDesign font list?
  • Why can't I install a PostScript Type 1 font?
  • Why doesn't the Input menu show up in my menu bar?
  • People keep telling me to "just delete the caches." Where are they? Why does deleting them help?"
 


1/27/2009
Free iServices Trojan Removal Tool 1.1 Released
Las Vegas, Nevada - Since SecureMac released its iWorkServices Trojan Removal Tool last week, a new related trojan has been detected in the wild. As a result, SecureMac has updated the tool, and renamed it iServices Trojan Removal Tool. The tool is still free to download and use, and now detects and removes the new variant distributed with pirated versions of Adobe (ADBE) Photoshop CS 4 for Apple (AAPL) Mac OS X.
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1/20/2009
David Pogue's Digital Photography: The Missing Manual
New from O'Reilly
"Sebastopol, CA--No wonder we snap up 15 million digital cameras a year--they save us money, provide instant creative feedback, and allow instantaneous distribution of our pictures. But now there is twice as much to learn: the art of photography plus the science of working with photos on the computer. Fortunately in O'Reilly Media's new, highly anticipated "David Pogue's Digital Photography: The Missing Manual" ($24.99), the New York Times tech columnist and camera critic takes all the "negatives" out of digital photography.

Instead, in a concise, easy-to-understand, jargon-free, and beautifully illustrated four-color book, author David Pogue demystifies the art of shooting pictures, editing them, organizing them, and distributing them to your audience.

"These days, digital photography *is* photography. But even the cheapest pocket camera has over 100 features, half of which are never decently explained anywhere. I mean, come on, read the photo magazines: 'Boost the ISO to 1600, dial up the aperture, or change the exposure compensation by 1/3EV.' Huh?" notes David.

David adds: "I'm so happy to have this chance to break through both the marketing jargon and the techno jargon--to write an entertaining little book that covers both pocket cameras and the big black SLR models. Over the years, I've reviewed hundreds of cameras for The Times, and loved every minute of it; I think this was a book I was born to write."
For more information about the book, including table of contents, index, author bio, and samples, Go to: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596154035/
 


1/19/2009
Spotlight on Sam & Dave: Spotlight Search Tips
Scott Kelby and Dave Gales walk you through Leopard’s amazing Spotlight search feature.

"If there was ever a product that richly deserved its own chapter, it’s Leopard’s amazing Spotlight search feature. That’s because we spend a ton of our time searching for things on our Macs. Why? Because we don’t know where anything is. Ever. Take my car keys, for example. You might as well take them, because I generally have no idea where they are. For some reason I can clearly remember undocumented keyboard shortcuts from Mac OS 7.1, but I have no idea where I laid my car keys last night. You know what I need? I need Spotlight outside my Mac, in my regular life. I would just type in “car keys” and it would say “in the kitchen, just to the left of the bowl of fruit” or, more likely, “they’re still in the ignition.” So, how does the name of this chapter, “Spotlight on Sam & Dave,” fit in? Well, that’s the hook from the classic oldie “Sweet Soul Music” by an artist named Arthur Conley. In the song, he “spotlights” other singers, like James Brown and Otis Redding."
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11/17/2008
iPod: The Missing Manual, 7th Edition
New From O'Reilly
Sebastopol, CA--Got a new iPod? This new, up-to-the-nanosecond 7th edition of "iPod: The Missing Manual" (O'Reilly, $19.99) can help you get your new iPod out of the box and into your ears in 15 minutes.

"You'll learn a bit about your particular iPod model and how to get it whistling sweet tunes in your ear in a minimal amount of time," notes author J.D. Biersdorfer, who also pens the technology Q & A column for the New York Times. "If you want more information on in-depth iPodding or getting the most out iTunes, you can find that stuff in chapters farther down the road."

Written by Biersdorfer and David Pogue, the New York Times' award-winning tech columnist, "iPod: The Missing Manual" is as stylish and satisfying as its subject. Each custom-designed page sports easy-to-follow graphics, crystal-clear explanations, and guidance on the most useful things your iPod can do.

For more information about how to get the most from your new iPod, see J.D. Biersdorfer's tips and tricks at here: http://missingmanuals.com/ipod_7_biersdorfer_tips2.csp
 


11/05/2008
Mac Automation Made Simple
From Ben Waldie
Creating an Automator PDF Workflow
In this episode of Mac Automation Made Simple, Ben Waldie demonstrates how to save Automator workflows as print workflow plug-ins. Once saved, these workflows appear in Mac OS X's print dialog, and can be triggered to process printed PDF documents.
Watch the Video...

Scheduling Automator Workflows
In this episode of Mac Automation Made Simple, Ben Waldie demonstrates how to save Automator workflows as iCal alarm plug-ins, allowing them to be scheduled to run during downtime, such as at night or while you're away from your desk.
Watch the Video...

Creating an Aperture Automator Workflow
In this episode of Mac Automation Made Simple, Ben Waldie demonstrates how to create an Automator workflow for Aperture that allows you to review specified photos, import approved photos into an Aperture project, and assign metadata to the photos.
Watch the Video...
 


 


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