Mac 101

Mac 101: Stars and Smart Playlists

If you’re anything like me — and I sincerely hope you’re not, for your sake — you have a large iTunes music library, but the music that you like right now is only a small fraction of that total. (Yeah, that embarrassing ‘96 Dave Matthews Band album is getting pretty dusty.)

Since my musical tastes vary from day to day, and songs quickly fall in and out of my fickle favor, I love assigning ratings to the music I like this minute. I have a five-star rating for la crème de la crème, and a four-star rating for stuff that’s pretty good. Three-star items are sadly relegated to history.

Next, I combine ratings with smart playlists: Now I can add and remove songs from my current rotation just by changing their star rating. I can do this on-the-go, too: Change a rating on my iPod, and the playlists are updated immediately, and eventually synced back to the computer.

Follow me across the jump to see how you can dynamically and efficiently manage your music as quickly as your tastes change.
Read the rest of this entry

Popularity: 6% [?]

Mac 101: Safari tab tricks

I’ve found myself using Firefox 3 more and more as of late, though there is one feature of Safari that I miss dearly. Picture it: you have a bunch of tabs loaded up in one window of your browser. For some reason you decide that you would really like to see one tab in its very own window. In Safari all you have to do is click on that tab and drag. As you can see to the right, a little picture of the website you’re viewing appears and you can drop that picture anywhere on your screen. Once you drop it, the picture expands into a Safari window displaying that website.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Mac 101: Pairing/Unpairing Apple remotes

If you’re like me, then you have multiple Macs with IR sensors in the same room. What happens when you push the menu button on your Apple remote? Chances are it will launch Front Row on every Mac in the room. I had this problem until I discovered Apple remote pairing.

To pair your remote with a specific Mac or Apple TV, just hold down the menu and the next (fast forward) buttons for 5 seconds making sure you’re within 5 inches of the IR sensor on the device.

You can unpair a remote by going into System Preferences (Apple menu > System Preferences) and click security. From the Security System Preference pane, select the “Unpair” button at the bottom the preference pane.

Lastly, you can disable the use of remotes all together. To do this, head back to the Security System Preference pane and click the check box labeled “Disable remote control infrared receiver.” This will keep rogue remotes away from your Mac.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Mac 101: Get info

Switchers and new Mac users may hear veterans refer to “performing a get info.” Here’s what that means, and exactly what you’ll get.

Single-click a file or folder in the Finder and select “Get Info” from the File menu (or hit Command-I on your keyboard) and a new window appears. This is the Info window, and it provides a lot of information.

First, you’ll see the file’s name, size and most recent modification date. Below that is a field for storing comments or keywords to improve Spotlight search results. For instance, you might add “Colorado,” “Map” and “Vacation” to a PDF you’ll need for that upcoming trip.

Next you’ll see the file’s kind, size (again), location on your hard drive, creation date and most recent modification date (again). You can also add a color-coded label to any files you want to group visually.

Two checkboxes follow. Selecting “Stationery Pad” will force that file to open a copy of itself when double-clicked, and selecting “Locked” will prevent future changes (as well as deletion).

The “More Info” display depends on file type. For instance, an image will list data like dimensions, color space, etc. A Pages document will list last time opened or edited.

“Name and Extension” lists a file’s name as well as an option to display or hide its extension. You’ll also find an option to determine a file’s parent application (the one used to open it), a preview of that file and finally sharing and permission information.

If you’re new to the Mac, “perform a get info” on a few files to get a feel for that window and the data you’ll find there. It’s pretty useful.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Mac 101: Remove unwanted System Preference panes

Sometimes applications can install extras in the form of System Preference panes. However, when you remove the app from your Mac, you might be left with extraneous System Preference panes.

To uninstall System Preference panes, just right-click (or control + click if you have a one button mouse) on the preference pane icon and select “remove x preference pane.”

When you click “remove,” the preference pane will be instantly moved to the OS X Trash can where you can completely remove it from your system by emptying the trash.

Want to see more tips and tricks like this? Visit Apple’s Mac 101 section today!

Popularity: 8% [?]