By Gazmaz:
So have you just moved over to the Mac, and you have all these shiny new applications to play with, the likes of iPhoto, iMovie and the rest,
but all you actually want to do is write a document? So what has you’re Mac got for you to write a nice clean document.
You haven’t bought the likes of iWork or Mircrosoft Office for the Mac or you haven’t downloaded one of the great open free office applications. Well in jumps Textedit. Textedit can be both a plain .txt file generator or, you can easily create a Rich Text Format document. For those who don’t know, this basically means you can create a formatted document, which can then be read on all other RTF compatible applications on most other operating systems.
So the reason I wanted to mention Textedit, was because you saw a few items being opened in Textedit and then you may have copied the information and pasted it into another more powerful application. But if you just came across to the Mac, then don’t make the same mistake I made and ignore Textedit as just the Apple version of notepad from your Windows days, because it is most certainly worth a longer look.
Textedit can be used as a basic text editing tool, and to that end, lots of people use it to write HTML code, not something that I’m particularly into. But if your word processing needs are not overly complicated then you may be surprised at what Textedit can do. So let’s start off with a few basics, if you’re a, “I need to autosave because I’m used to my apps crashing all the time” user. (I know that happens less and less over on the Windows platform, but I certainly still come across Word crashing on my work machine), then Textedit has that simple, but great facility. You go into Preferences or CMD-comma, which is the standard preferences keyboard shortcut. You then click on the Open and Save tab and along with other options, you’ll see an autosaving option from which you can set the saving to every 15 secs, 30 secs, 1 minute, 5 minutes or never.
Now you may also say, “yes that’s great but when I open textedit it doesn’t look the same as the word doc I used to open”. If you’re like me you may have opened Word on the PC in Print View, don’t ask me why, but I used to like to see when I was formatting the document, what the finished item would look like once printed. You can have a similar view in Textedit. All you have to do click on format in the edit bar, then click on “wrap to page” or shift-CMD-W. All this really does is give you a border within the Textedit page window, but it is more familiar, certainly for me at least.
You can insert tables into your document and adjusting the width of these columns is as easy as highlighting the border frame, click and hold and drag to the size you require. You can even nest a table inside another table, in fact the simplicity of this nesting seems to make this a more understandable process than I ever found in Word. You’ll find tables under the format option on the menu bar.
You can create lists. The list option can be found at the top of your open page as a drop-down option, there are plenty of types to choose from and these can easily be placed inside the table you just created.
Along the top you’ll also see a styles drop-down option, the usual center, left & right align and justify options, also a spacing option.
To go even further, you also have kern and ligature options from the format font menu options, in fact as you can see you have a pretty powerful little word processor built right into you’re operating system, and because it’s built into your OS you also have the built-in spell and grammar checking capabilities. It will also insert those smart “curly” quotes when needed.
Now if Textedit is sitting on your dock, try grabbing some text from the web or an email and dragging it onto the Textedit icon, a new Textedit document will open complete with the formatting of the text you have just grabbed, and this will show you is just how much quicker it is to open than those bigger heavier applications. So if you’re wanting to quickly get something copied or typed down, I would certainly go for Textedit as my first choice.
You can paste pictures and even sound clips into your document, but the editing potential and adjustment’s are very limited. But if you require that amount of power then certainly you need to go up a notch when it comes to Word Processing. Of course Textedit is not a total office solution, but if your looking for a quick to open easy to use, no messing about with templates word processor, then don’t ignore Textedit, I did for quite a while, and that was a shame.
Mac 101 : http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2523
By David Sparks Before I got a day job, I used to be a professional musician. This goes back some time. Back to the 80’s and the days of big hair and skinny ties. That was also the time that MIDI really started to take off and there was a fantastic little application (that came [...]
This week we look at ColcaSac Sleeves, Band-in-a-Box, Melon Golf, Freeware plus much more. I want to thank you for downloading and listening to the podcast. We have the best in Mac hardware, software and websites reviews. We have a lot of great folks on today’s episode with their reviews and comments on software, hardware and websites that make using the Mac special. Plus I’ll have the top freeware Mac apps of the week and much more.
You can email me at surfbits at Gmail dot Com. I love to hear from you.
Here is the freeware and shareware I look at during the podcast:
MailSteward: http://www.mailsteward.com
Gruml: http://www.grumlapp.com
Flip4Mac: http://www.telestream.net/flip4mac-wmv/overview.htm
GarageBuy: http://www.iwascoding.com/GarageBuy
Timer Utility: http://jrproductions.no-ip.org
David Sparks from MacSparky joins us this week and reviews:
Band-in-a-Box: http://www.pgmusic.com
Gazmaz Joins us again this week to review:
TextEdit from Apple in all OSX systems.
Robert Lachman, L.A.Times Staff Photographer joins us. His Web site is PhotographyandtheMac.com, and he talks about:
ColcaSac MacBook Sleeves: http://www.colcasac.com
Michelle Lopez joins us today from the The Portable Gamer and iCasual Report to review the iPhone/iPod Touch game:
Melon Golf: 2up Games, http://www.melongolf.com
Jeff Powell joins us and talks about:
Layar Reality Browser: http://layar.com
Screen sharing with iChat: http://www.apple.com/macosx/what-is-macosx/ichat.html
Sharing sites with friends & co-workers: http://delicious.com
Firefox add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3615
Safari add-on: http://delicioussafari.com
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Continue reading about The MacReviewCast #229: ColcaSac Sleeves, Band in a Box, Melon Golf
I thought you would like to know that Adobe Systems Inc. today introduced Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 beta software for Macintosh and Windows, a public preview of new and improved functionality to be delivered in the next major release. Available as a free download on Adobe Labs, Lightroom 3 beta delivers a preview of new tools that will be in Lightroom 3, including more intuitive importing, unparalleled noise reduction and sharpening tools, enhanced slideshow capabilities and direct publishing to online photo sharing sites like Flickr. Adobe encourages photographers to test this early selection of new features and provide the product team with their feedback.
Just as you can be certain that the beautiful hardwoods in Wisconsin will change color every Fall, you can be certain of the fact that Gmail will someday let you down. One morning your account will be gone, disappeared, wiped out, or as in my case this morning, every email I was saving in several [...]
Continue reading about When Gmail Decided to Stick it to Me, I was ready
Let’s start with a problem to be solved first. You run backups, you’ve got offsite backups, you take great care of your equipment, but what happens if you simply forget to save a document while you’re working on it. let’s say you don’t have ADD like most of us and you can actually concentrate for a long period of time while you work and you forget to save? You could have a hard disk crash, a power spike or simply forget to save and a family member walks up and quits the application. ForeverSave is designed to allow you to auto save at regular time intervals without even having to think about it.
ForeverSave also saves when you switch applications – which is yet another easy way to lose your work – you switch and then forget all about the open document (because you truly DO have ADD like the rest of us) and you shut the computer down without thinking or let the battery go dead.
So let’s get started with ForeverSave. Download the disk image to get a happy surprise – it comes with both Leopard and Snow Leopard installers on the disk image. After running the installer it tells you that it uses Universal Access, which is a preference pane that controls the tools that assist the visually impaired, hearing impaired, and those that require assistance with the keyboard, mouse and trackpad. If you’ve already enabled access for assistive devices, ForeverSave just moves on to the next step. I had mine on, I’m pretty sure some of the text expansion programs use this little trick too.
The folks at ForeverSave took a lot of care in making the experience of configuring their tool as simple as possible. One of the features of ForeverSave is the ability to do an in-app restore from one of your backups. During the initial setup of the software you have the option to enable that, so during the setup you can actually watch a video imbedded in the setup to understand why you might want to assign a hotkey to this function.
Next ForeverSave asks you to start adding applications. The one app I’m most worried about losing things in is Feeder, so I chose to add that first. Imagine a week without my shownotes – that would be about an 8 minute show! Ok, 38 minutes because Chit Chat Across the Pond isn’t scripted…Anyway, ForeverSave lets you push the plus button to start adding applications.
they show you a list of applications, but it’s not all of your apps, and at first it confused me on why it chose that particular subset of 17 applications. and then it dawned on me – it was showing me my currently running apps! I do have a bad habit of keeping apps running (and tons of windows in each one, but 17? I’m nuts, I really gotta cut back! Anyway, you can choose an app from that list or you can navigate to your Applications folder. The ForeverSave developers added some gorgeous graphical enhancements to even the setup program – when you ask to see your applications folder the window slowly and gracefully flips over to the other side. It’s really fun!
Let’s step through the options you’re given as you go through the setup for an application. One of your first options is to let ForeverSave save when you switch to another application, then you can mess with how often it should save, with a default of one minute.
Next up ForeverSave asks you if you want to enable versioning management. This capability allows you to manage how many versions it keeps and how long to keep the backups. I chose to save 5 versions (I can’t imagine I would wreck it THAT badly that I’d need more than 5) and to erase the backups when they’re a month old. I started thinking about this versioning idea – this could be a disaster if I tried it on something like Garageband while I’m recording the live show. You see the file is around 450MB when it’s done – can you imagine how quickly my drive would fill up if I let it save 20 versions? The good news is that the live chat room does a great job of yelling SAVE every time I stop to catch my breath, especially Karrell and Kevin lately.
The next option seems a little odd but they’ve thought everything else out so well I’m sure there will be a reason for this – they let you exclude files that happen to live in specifically defined folders. hmmm…wonder where that will come in handy.
The next step is to choose whether you want to save and back up, just save (same thing as command-s all the time) or backup only. The difference between save and back up is that save is writing over the old version while backup is creating multiple versions of the file. Next decide what to do when you’ve got a file open that you haven’t named yet, and you’re then rewarded with a giant green check of completion.
I ran Feeder for a while after setting it up and then I clicked on ForeverSave in the menubar and chose view backups (I’d chosen backup and save). I was sad because it was empty! i wrote to Tobias over at Tool Force and he explained that the backup function won’t work with applications that keep their files in a database like Feeder (he’s a fan too!) The great news is that the autosave function works perfectly! I’m just toodling along writing in Feeder and I can see the File button in the toolbar highlight every minute and I know ForeverSave has saved my latest entries. Tobias got back to me really quickly which I appreciated!
I took his advice and set up a more normal application, Bean for word processing. I typed a bit, waited a minute to see it save, typed some more, waited for a save. Then I clicked ForeverSave in the menu bar and I got a lovely window with backup files from the last few minutes! Again with the gorgeous graphics – the windows pop out at you in this cool way, kinda hard to describe but really fun. Last week I reviewed an app where they spent all their time on cool looking but forgot to build a great product first. ForeverSave is the opposite, they built great functionality and then spent some time making it animated in a very pleasing way.
Anyway back to the actual restore process – you click on your document in the left sidebar (In case you have more than one document open) and then you’ll see the list of bakcups with a date and time stamp. you can click on one and hit quick look and it zooms out at you in that pretty quick look kind of way and lets you see if that’s the version you were looking for. You can delete versions, open them, replace them, or restore them, all from this one window.
If I were listening to this review I’d expect the final words to be “and ForeverSave is only $29.95 – what are your precious documents worth to you?” But after writing all these wonderful things and being completely sold on this app – I discovered that ForeverSave is only NINE ninety five! I know I sound like a used car salesman here but I’m floored that an application that does such a critical function, has an elegant interface and works flawlessly is only $9.95. Ok, you’re not sold yet? You can download a free 30 day trial, or you can even download the free Lite version of ForeverSave. They have a diagram explaining what you get in the full version over the Lite version – basically Lite only does the autosave function. The full version does the backups, version management, quick look, advanced settings and more.
I’m very impressed by ForeverSave (if you couldn’t tell) and I give it a 100% approval rating (which as you know is VERY rare for me), and the price is incredible. It does say “for a limited time only” on that $9.95 price by the way. go check it out at tool-forcesw.com
Continue reading about ForeverSave is a Must-Have Mac Utility
Continuing on my theme of security for your Mac, today I want to talk about physical security and deterring people from even thinking about stealing your computer. Remember back in episode #216 when I did a review of Watchmac? Well that product focused on infringement notification and in episode #223 I reviewed LoJack for Laptops, which is a recovery tool. Neither of these provide an ounce of prevention. So today I want to talk about preventing bad guys from attempting to steal your precious Mac. And the first thing I want to discuss is the humble but very effective cable lock.
Now I know these things are not pretty. The last I checked, David Yurman does not make a computer cable lock and if he did it would probably cost more than your Mac. But as unfashionable as they might be, they are highly effective at preventing theft. That industrial grey look just screams trouble for any would-be thief.
If you’ve never used a cable lock, they are similar to a bicycle cable with a loop on one end and a special combination lock on the other. You wrap the cable around any stationary object and pass the lock back through the loop and on to the computer which has a special security hole to receive these locks. It only takes a few seconds and your done.
Recently a friend of mine had his computer stolen from his hotel room while on a business trip. Mind you this was not some cheap flee bag hotel and the thief was both experienced and quite brazen. However, A simple cable lock would have prevented all but the most determined and heavily equipped thief. The truth is that you don’t have to build Fort Knox around your Mac, you just have to make your machine less attractive than the next person’s machine.
Thieves are opportunistic people, so don’t make it easy on them. A $30 cable lock from any electronics store will give you piece of mind when going back for that second latte. Also, if you’re less than confident in your general home security, you can lock down your desktop machine and most external hard drives as well.
Now if you are put off by the looks of a cable lock then you’re really going to be repulsed by the next item, a security plate. Generally relegated to business computing, a security plate provides a permanent identifier for your computer. One such provider of plates to both business and individuals is STOP Security Plates and they can be found at www.stoptheft.com
These plates are a two part system. Part one is a steel plate that is permanently attached to your machine and the second part is a high visibility sticker warning everyone that this computer is protected against theft by the STOP registration system.
The objective is to make your laptop unattractive to the bad guys by making it traceable and effectively reducing its street value down close to zero. The way this works is that for $25 you purchase a small kit from STOP that includes the warning sticker, steel plate, cleaner and special adhesive. You clean the surface of your machine according to the instruction, apply the adhesive and plate, then the sticker. Each plate has a unique barcode. To finish the process you go online to www.stoptheft.com and register that plate’s barcode. That’s it.
The plate is now permanently attached to your computer. And when I say permanent, I mean permanent. Don’t even think about trying to remove it. Even if you happen to have your own Jaws of Life, removing this plate will reveal two things. First, you will most certainly scratch, dent and generally mar up the your Mac trying to pry this thing off. Second, you will find a surprise underneath. The STOP plate will have permanently tattooed the surface of your computer with the words “Stolen Property” and their 1-800 recovery number.
STOP is all about deterrence and making your machine less attractive to thieves than the next person’s machine. If your computer is stolen while wearing a STOP plate then you call STOP and notify them in case someone finds and reports the machine to STOP. But remember this is primarily a deterrence tool, not a recovery tool.
Now, if you one day need to sell a device which has one of these plates attached there is a legitimate way of transferring the plate registration over to another person, so no need to worry about that. Finally, if you want to go all out, they even have a STOP plate with a cable lock receiver attached to the plate and a mating cable, which goes for $40.
So there you have it. Two prevention tools for deterring would-be thieves from attacking your Mac. Neither of these are going to win any fashion awards but the point is deterrence and protection. I use the sleep test on such matters. If it lets me sleep better at night then it’s probably a good device.
This week we look at EOS Wireless, Foreversave, Yojimbo, Cable locks, Freeware plus much more. I want to thank you for downloading and listening to the podcast. We have the best in Mac hardware, software and websites reviews. We have a lot of great folks on today’s episode with their reviews and comments on software, hardware and websites that make using the Mac special. Plus I’ll have the top freeware Mac apps of the week and much more.
You can email me at surfbits at Gmail dot Com. I love to hear from you.
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Here is the freeware and shareware I look at during the podcast:
EOS Wireless Audio: http://www.eoswireless.com
Invoice Machine: http://invoicemachine.com/home
Evernote account switcher: http://www.jazzaround.net/eas
Syrinx: http://mrrsoftware.com/MRRSoftware/Syrinx.html
TV Shows: http://deathtobunnies.com/tvshows
TED: http://www.ted.nu
Scheduler for Mac: http://www.macscheduler.net
Time Machine Editor: http://timesoftware.free.fr/timemachineeditor
Ed Winstead visits the podcast today to continue his reviews of Security products for the Mac. Today it’s Cable Locks and Stop Plates.
Stop Security Plates: http://www.stoptheft.com
Allison Sheridan from the NosillaCast Podcast looks at:
ForeverSave: http://tool-forcesw.com/foreversave
Tom Piraino from MacinTom.ca looks at:
Yojimbo 2.0: http://www.barebones.com
Try the new ENHANCED version of the MacReviewCast:
And now we have the Podcast in Bit-Torrent Feeds! …
You can either click on the podcast link on the left and listen to it via QT from the browser, or you can right click on the podcast link and choose to “download linked file”. That will download the mp3 and you can play it from you hard drive with iTunes.
The right link below is the URL for the podcast RSS feed. Just right click it and choose to copy the address and then paste it in your podcast reader, or ipodder, or newsreader that will download enclosures automatically.
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Continue reading about The MacReviewCast #228: Yojimbo, ForeverSave, EOS Wireless Audio
The good news is that you can put all your music and podcasts and audio books on one iPod and take it with you everywhere you go. The bad news is that if you wanted to share that music or those podcasts with anyone else, you’d have to carry an iPod speaker system with you [...]
