MacMost: Archives

There are hundreds of keyboard shortcuts for Mac users. There are Mission Control shortcuts, Finder shortcuts, system shortcuts, application shortcuts and more. Many you can find by just looking through the menu bar for that application. You can find system ones by looking in the System Preferences under Keyboard.

But some keyboard shortcuts are more useful than others. And some are harder to remember than others.
So MacMost has compiled a list of our top “power user” keyboard shortcuts for Mac OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion). Here they all are on a single PDF page, downloadable and printable: The MacMost Mountain Lion Power User Keyboard Shortcuts. Download it and pass it along!

The new dictation feature of Mountain Lion lets you speak short sentences and it will translate to text. You can use dictation in apps like TextEdit and Pages. Unlike third-party solutions, it doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles. But it is useful for tweets, text messages and other short bits of text.

Learn how to use Notifications in OS X Mountain Lion. This new functionality allows you to get messages in the corner of your screen from various apps. You can also view a list of recent notifications and control how and if apps send you notices. You can also add your Twitter account to OS X to received and send tweets from the Notifications Center.

Two releases this week added two major video providers to Apple devices. Hulu, the service that streams television shows for a set monthly fee, is now available on Apple TV through a system update. The new app requires a paid subscription but goes a long way toward making Apple TV a viable alternative to cable for many people.
On the iPad, a new Amazon Instant Video app beings that service to the device for subscribers. This is a competitor to Netflix, which is also available in the iPad.
The new retina-display MacBook now comes in a greater variety of built-to-order options. There are larger SSD drives, more processor varieties and some memory options as well.
As we move toward fall, more evidence mounts for a possible September announcement and release of a new iPhone. Sharp’s president let slip that his company would start shipping displays for the new iPhone as early as later this month. A new version of iOS, now being tested by developers, is expected to be released at the same time as a new iPhone.

“I’d get an iPad, but it is just too big. I hope they come out with a smaller, lighter version soon.”

Gatekeeper is a new security feature of OS X in Mountain Lion. It allows you to prevent apps from being installed depending upon the source of the app. You can decide to only allow Mac App Store apps, or also allow signed apps, or turn off Gatekeeper if you don't want to use it. Learn how to set Gatekeeper and why it will help you keep your Mac more secure.

Safari 6 has arrived for Lion and Mountain Lion. Look at changes to Safari including a smart search field, offline reading list and faster JavaScript. But the ability to look at RSS feeds is gone.

Learn how you can store Mac Pages, Numbers and Keynote documents in your iCloud account with OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. These documents can also be accessed on your iOS devices. Find out how to create iCloud folders, rename, delete and move iCloud documents.

As expected, Apple released OS X 10.8 “Mountain Lion” on Wednesday in the Mac App Store. The new version of OS X costs $19.99 and can be installed on top of Lion or Snow Leopard. It includes the new apps Reminders, Notes and Messages and new functionality such as notifications, game center and dictation. You can see our look at the new features in Mountain Lion in this video.
It seems that updates are going smoothly with the exception of users who had purchased a Mac in the last few weeks and were given a free redemption code to get Mountain Lion. Some of those codes have not been working and Apple has moved quickly to hand out new codes. Some users are also complaining that OS X 10.7 “Lion” is no longer available which could be a problem for those wanting to update older machines that will run Lion, but not Mountain Lion.
In addition to the OS X release, new versions of many Apple apps such as Pages and Keynote have been released to support new Mountain Lion functionality. Pages, for instance, can now save and open documents from iCloud and use dictation.
This week Apple also released its quarterly financial report. Although they increased sales year-over-year and beat their own guidance, Wall Street showed disappointment that they did not beat analyst expectations.

“Would you like to try our new Retina Pizza? It is just like a normal pizza, but cut into 32 slices instead of 8.”

Check out the new features of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. There are new apps like Reminders, Messages and Notes. Apps can now save documents to iCloud. OS X now includes a notifications center and game center.

Removing an external hard drive or USB flash drive is easy, but should be done properly by first ejecting the disk in the Finder before removing it physically. The same is true for iOS devices which can be ejected from inside iTunes.

The Color Picker is a small window that appears in many Mac applications. You can use it to choose a color in many different ways. You can also save your favorite colors to slots. Those favorites will then appear in any app that uses the Color Picker.

With the clock ticking toward the end of July, it is likely that Apple will release the new version of OS X, Mountain Lion, next week. Apple reports quarterly earnings on Tuesday, and rumor has it that Apple Store employees have been asked to work extra hours next week. Mountain Lion will be distributed online, via the Mac App Store, but store employees might just be preparing to answer questions and provide assistance.
Rumors are building in advance of the fall release season for Apple. There are reports of the next generation of iPhones being manufactured, a small-screen iPad, and new iMacs. Apple usually tries to introduce new hardware before the end of October for the holiday shopping season, so it is likely that we’ll see updates and new products in the coming months.

“Our anthropologists say that in the early part of the 21st century on Earth, mankind looked to a demigod named Siri for answers, asking it over and over again: What is the meaning of life?”

Learn how to create pie charts in iWork Numbers. You can create beautiful 2D and 3D pie charts from a simple list of numbers. Find out how to break single wedges out of the chart and how to put the chart on a separate page for printing.

You can use Keynote to make photo collages with its smart build feature. These collages can feature photos moving and changing quickly on the screen. You can then export them to video files and use them in iMovie.

When users first switch to Gmail from an older email service, it is hard to understand the concept of labels and an All Mail folder. With Gmail, you wouldn't typically delete email, but simply add or remove labels. These labels look like folders when you use Apple's Mail program, but understanding how they really work will help you use your Gmail account.

The next version of OS X, Mountain Lion, will be launched by the end of this month according to Apple. And some signs point to them being right on schedule.
This past week Apple released a gold master of the OS to developer, which is usually the very last test release before launch. Apple also asked developers who were working on Mountain Lion versions of their software to start submitting those versions to the Mac App Store.
In addition, Apple posted a special “how to upgrade” page that includes which Macs are eligible for the new OS. As expected, some older 2008 and earlier models are not compatible with Mountain Lion and will need to remain with Lion as their OS. You can see the complete list as well as other upgrade information at http://www.apple.com/osx/how-to-upgrade/. It will cost only $19.99, the lowest priced OS X upgrade ever offered. It will only be available as a download from the Mac App Store.

“I have 100,000 songs in my iTunes collection, but I can’t listen to any of them right now.”
“Why not?”
“Ironically, because they are all stored ‘in the cloud.'”