MacMost: Archives

Rulers and guides can be found in page layout and graphics apps. You can use them to precisely align objects on a page. Learning to use rulers and guides can make it easier and quicker to create professional designs. You can use them in apps like Pages, Keynote, Pixelmator, Photoshop and more.

You can set custom vibration patterns for your iPhone to use in addition to custom ringtones. You can use these vibrations to tell who is calling you, or what type of alert you have received. You can also set your phone to blink the LED flash so you can see an alert in addition to hearing and feeling it. You can turn off vibrations and silence your phone and still see the LED alert.

Apple uses cat names to represent versions of OS X. It is important to know both the cat name and the version number of OS X that you are using. Sometimes you will hear or read the cat name, and sometimes the version number. So knowing which ones match which is important.

Learn how to use the keyboard to move between fields, menus and checkboxes in forms on web pages. Knowing these shortcuts can save you a lot of time if you need to fill out forms often.

You can use a graphics program like Pixelmator to add some semi-transparent text to your photos before uploading them. Adjusting the color and opacity of the text will make sure the text doesn't interfere with the photo's content, unless you want it to.

Learn about the Undo and Redo functions for Macs and iOS. The Undo function is available in almost every app and situation on the Mac, and many on iOS too. However, what the Undo function does depends on the type of app and the last action you took. Many apps allow you to undo multiple steps and redo them as well.

Learn how to tell which apps are using the most space on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. You can use the Settings app to list all of your apps by the amount of storage space they are using. You can delete apps, clear their storage areas and sometimes manage the files they keep. With other apps you will need to use the app itself to manage its files.

The Recent Places list appears in save dialog boxes across all of your applications. You can use it to quickly save documents to the same folder, even if you are using a variety of apps for the same project.

Google Drive spreadsheets is a good alternative to using desktop apps like Excel and Numbers. It is a fairly sophisticated number crunching program that has all of the major features seen in those others. All you need is to use your web browser and a free Google account.

Scroll Bars in Lion and Mountain Lion will appear and disappear depending on your actions. You can set them to always be present, or to change based on your input device. With two fingers on your trackpad, you can scroll easily. You can also use the arrow keys on your keyboard to scroll.

Learn about some of the actions in Automator that control the Calendar and Mail app. Build a workflow that will search your events, summarize them as text, and convert that text to an audio file. Then Mail can send it as an email message.

Learn how to properly eject an external hard drive or USB flash drive. You can also remount an ejected drive without needing to unplug the drive and plug it back in using Disk Utility.