MacMost: Archives

iTunes 11 features a new MiniPlayer that has enough advanced functionality to allow you to control playback without the main iTunes window. You can also bring up a movie window that doubles as an artwork viewer. You can set both to remain on top of all other windows and apps allowing you to control your music playback while doing other things with your Mac.

Occasionally the fix for an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch problem is to 'backup and restore' your device. This tutorial walks you through the steps using iTunes 11. You basically make sure your device is synced and backed up. Then you use iTunes to perform the simple, but often time-consuming, restore.

Spotify is a competitor to iTunes that streams music to your Mac or iOS device. A free account allows you to listen to music with ads on your Mac, but a premium account lets you download music for offline listening and also use your iOS device to listen. The service is only as good as its catalog of music, and Spotify is far from perfect in that respect.

You can store bookmarks in Safari in four places: the bookmarks bar, the bookmarks menu, custom bookmarks folders and Top Sites. See how to create custom folders and how to choose where to store bookmarks and how to move and re-arrange them.

There are a variety of effects in Pixelmator that you can use to make subtle or extreme changes to your images. You can apply simply adjustments, or add new elements. You can apply effects to an entire image, or just a selection. Take a look at some examples and then try to play with effects yourself.

Often the fastest and easiest way to get a document to your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch is to use DropBox. This service and free app allow you to sync a folder between your computer and your iOS device using the free app. So you can quickly drag and drop files to your DropBox folder and then they will appear on your iOS device. You can use the app to view a variety of file types.

Pages comes with templates that can make creating documents easy. For instance, you can use one of the certificates templates to make up fun awards for home or work. You can use the flyers templates to create for sale signs to post in your neighborhood. You can also use templates to make quick newsletters and brochures. You can get more templates from the Mac App Store.

Have you ever missed a post on Facebook simply because Facebook didn't show it in your 'Top Stories' list? You can avoid this using one of two techniques. The first is to simply switch to viewing your Most Recent posts instead of Top Stories. But you can also create a custom list that includes some or all of your friends and bookmark that so you can view everything without missing a post.

With iOS 6 you can take panoramic photos using an iPhone 5, iPhone 4s or the 5th generation iPod touch. Panoramas can be used to capture a landscape, but they can also be used for up-close wide or tall shots. They work best if objects are not moving, but can tolerate some movement. Since they are a composition of several photos, they are more detailed than a single shot. You can use panoramas to create some interesting photos.

Learn how to use the clone tool in Pixelmator. This drawing tool can be useful for adding additional copies of repeating objects, like flowers in a flowerbed, to your photos. You can also use it to clone an uneven background to remove objects from a photo without leaving an obvious empty space in the photo.

The new iTunes 11 has several improvements and new features you should know about. You can also learn how to bring back the left sidebar. Learn about the new Up Next list and how you can view your music library by song, artist, album and sort in various ways. There is also a new way to search for content in your library.