Posts By: Gary Rosenzweig

The Desktop folder is just a regular folder with the special property of existing over your desktop background as well as in Finder windows. Items on your Desktop are the same items as the ones you see in the Desktop folder in your Home user folder. The Desktop can be useful for quick or frequent access to files and folders, although many prefer to keep the Desktop clean and empty or use it for temporary storage of new files only.

The SUMIF function is one of the most useful functions in Numbers. You can use it to calculate the total for each category when you have a list of numbers and categories. The best way to use it is to create a second table and use one column in that table as the comparison value.

A common problem people have when trying to use custom Finder icons is that they try to set the icon to a file, instead of the image in a file's contents. Instead of the icon image they want, they get a default image JPG or PNG icon. You can use a custom icon by copying the contents of an image, from an app like Preview.

The Selective Color tool allows you to adjust all of the pixels that are a similar color in a photo. You have six slots to make up to six color adjustments. You can use this to change a color in a photo, make colors stand out more, or desaturate colors to change the emphasis objects.

Here's a handy technique. You can use a terminal command to launch a second instance of the same app. So, for instance, you can have the calculator app running twice. Or, three times. This could help with simple apps that only have one window. But it is dangerous to use for complex apps as the instances will trip over themselves in setting preferences and remembering settings and such. Still, it saved me a few days ago when an app crashed in a weird way and I couldn't save my work.

There is a quick and easy way to see your document or selected word count in Pages. In TextEdit, there is a simple trick you can use to reveal the document word count. You can also write a simple two-line AppleScript service in Automator to count the words in selected text in almost any application on your Mac.

You can easily preview the contents of a file before opening it. Take a look at four methods of previewing files such as images, PDFs or text documents. You can enlarge Finder icons to use as previews, look at the preview pane in column view, use cover flow view, or use the handy Quick Look function on your Mac.

You can do more than simply decline a phone call with no explanation on your iPhone. With only one more tap on your screen, you can decline and send a message to the caller to let them know why. You can edit three presets for this message, or type a custom one. You can also decline a call and set a reminder to call the person back later on.

I was looking for a way to batch convert image files that didn't require an app. I found the Sips command in the Terminal, which seems to have a lot of interesting options.

If you are in the habit of putting a blank line between paragraphs in Pages, you should learn to use paragraph spacing instead. You can also manage the spacing between lines with a variety of options. Paragraph and line spacing can be set on a per-paragraph basis.

If you want to prevent yourself from going to a website you can manually block a domain using the Terminal. To do so, you must edit your hosts file and redirect a domain to your local address. This could be useful to help you resist distractions while getting work done.

A lot of people think I am using a green screen or some technical trick to have a black void as my background. But it is much simpler than that.

The Finder seems to be designed to require the use of your mouse or trackpad. But you can get around and do everything using only the keyboard. For some, this may be even more efficient than clicking and dragging. You can use arrow keys to select files, shortcuts to move into and out of folders, and even type the names of folders to jump to them.

Typical Mac users never need to shut down their Macs on a daily basis. It is better to let your Mac go to sleep so it can handle maintenance tasks while you aren't using it. This will make your Mac faster when you are using it, and also allow you to avoid any delay while it starts up. A sleeping Mac uses very little power.

You may already know how you can print and then use Save As PDF to save a PDF of almost anything on your Mac. But you can also add to that menu, creating convenient locations to save PDFs without needing to search for folders. You can also indicate applications that handle PDFs to send a PDF version of your document directly to that app.

You can set a script, either AppleScript or JavaScript (JXA) to handle incoming messages in the Messages app. In fact, there are a few default scripts already there, including one that will speak incoming messages. In this video I'll show you how to make a really simple script that gives and extra alert when you get a message from a specific person.