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5/23/2008
Take Control of Apple Mail
Press release:
Mail 3, the free email client that Apple ships with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, is full-featured and popular. However, once users need to go beyond the basics, many fail to use it effectively due to minimal documentation and interface confusion. Help is now at hand in the form of a pair of electronic books from email expert Joe Kissell: the brand new Take Control of Apple Mail in Leopard, and the newly updated Take Control of Spam in Apple Mail. Both titles sell for $10 separately, or they may be purchased together for $15 at takecontrolbooks.com

Take Control of Apple Mail in Leopard looks carefully at how to set up different kinds of email accounts and where email from various accounts is stored, plus what to do if Mail can't successfully send or receive mail. After covering account setup, the ebook thoroughly covers the ins and outs of addressing, composing, and sending email. And, it helps readers get organized so they can read their most important messages first, plus find old messages easily. Plus, it examines making Time Machine backups of email, Address Book integration, Notes and To-Do items, archiving messages, rules, basic spam management, and more.
Questions answered in the book include:
  • What are the most important changes in Leopard Mail?
  • How can I read my email on more than one computer?
  • How do I use Mail as an RSS reader?
  • I attached a note to an email message, but where did it go?
  • Are there third-party tools that extend Mail's capabilities?
Take Control of Spam with Apple Mail covers everything an Apple Mail user might need to know about zapping spam. After providing readers with basic background on types of spam and how spammers perform their annoying tricks, the ebook gives readers advice and specific steps for maximizing how Apple Mail filters out spam. And, if a reader follows all those steps and still has too much spam, the ebook takes it to the next level with a detailed look at third-party software designed to help Mail users eliminate spam. The ebook also includes a coupon for $5 off SpamSieve, the author's top pick for a third-party spam fighting utility.
Questions answered in the book include:
  • How can I optimize Mail's junk mail filter?
  • What's a Bayesian filter?
  • How should I handle fraudulent or malicious messages?
  • How can I fine-tune my Previous Recipients list to help zap spam?
  • What third-party utilities work best to help Mail better filter out my spam?
 


Fixing Automator Workflow Folder Action Plug-Ins in Leopard
Automator offers a variety of options when saving workflows in Mac OS X, one of which is a Folder Action plug-in workflow. Although a workflow will run whenever items are added to an attached folder, it doesn't always work as expected. Ben Waldie shares tips and recommendations to help you resolve Automator Folder Action plug-in workflow issues in Mac OS X Leopard.
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Speed Up a Slow Mac
To learn more Read an excerpt from Joe Kissell's Take Control of Troubleshooting Your Mac.
 


5/16/2008
Apple TV Tips
From Apple TV For Dummies

Accessing the Apple TV Settings Menu
To display the Apple TV Settings menu, press Menu on your Apple Remote until you're backed out all the way to the top-level Apple TV menu (you'll see the cool Apple TV logo). Next, move the selection cursor to the Settings menu and press Play/Pause to display the entries.
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Customizing the Apple TV Screen Saver

The default settings on your Apple TV screen saver offer up some pretty cool 3-D images, but you can easily customize the screen saver with album-cover art or your own digital photos. You can then fire up your Apple TV to provide background music for mealtimes or a party and have something visually interesting going on at the same time. Think of it as art in motion.
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Top 10 Things You Forgot Your Mac Can Do
From Lifehacker-
"Macs may be more expensive, and Mac users more elitist (ahem), but blind Apple loyalty aside, there are a number of neat features bundled into your Mac that make it super useful and fun. We've covered dozens of Mac tips over the years in these pages, but today we're highlighting 10 lesser-known Mac tricks that come baked into Leopard. From pure eye candy to outright productivity-boosters, read on to get reminded of some of the more obscure things you can do with your Mac, fresh out of the box."
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5/08/2008
My New Mac - New from No Starch Press
New book shows readers how to make the most of their Macs with 52 simple projects

My New Mac
was written to meet the needs of new Mac users. "This is a project-oriented book that will have newbies doing useful things with their Macs right away," said author Wallace Wang. "I know I've never enjoyed wading through menu after menu to become an expert on software I'll hardly use, and I figure I'm not the only one."

The book focuses on the sorts of entertaining and practical things people want to do with their new Macs, like surf the Internet, send email, listen to CDs, take notes, or play with digital photos. It's fun stuff, if you know how to do it.

Among the book's projects are ones that show new users how to:
  • View stocks, flights, and the weather
  • Organize files and folders by color and keyword
  • Set up and manage parental controls to control computer and Internet access
  • Play and burn CDs and DVDs
  • Transfer photos from a digital camera to a Mac and organize them with iPhoto
  • Share songs, images, and documents wirelessly between Macs
  • Track birthdays with iCal
  • Clip and save information from the Internet
  • Keep themselves and their computers safe online
From the smiling origami iMac on the cover (watch the video) through each of the projects, My New Mac encourages readers to treat their new computer as an opportunity for fun and exploration, not something serious and overwhelming. By diving in and learning as they go, readers will find that their Macs are as user friendly as promised it just takes a helping hand.
Editor's Note: I've read Wallace Wang's "Steal This Computer Book 4.o" and he is one of my favorite authors. This new book should be well worth it to anyone new to the Mac.

 


5/07/2008
Filmmaking 101: Anatomy of a Final Cut Express Project
Before you can make movie magic, it helps to understand how your editing program organizes and manipulates all of those sequences and clips you've been shooting. In this sample chapter from Final Cut Express 4 Visual QuickStart Guide, author Lisa Brenneis shows you how to manage a well-organized project in Final Cut Express.
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