Posts By: Gary Rosenzweig

You can use backgrounds in iMovie in a number of ways. They can be placeholders between clips, or backgrounds to elements like titles. You can also put backgrounds on top of other video as overlays. Backgrounds can be customized somewhat, or you can use your own image or photo.

Open Terminal. Type the command emacs -batch -l dunnet
This launches a small text-based adventure game hidden in the EMACS text editor on your Mac.

You can use special cell types like checkboxes, ratings, sliders and pop-up menus to represent values in cells in Numbers. These cells can make it easier to enter data, or they can visually represent the data in a better way. You can use the values of these cells just like regular numbers and other data types.

In Keynote you can record your voice and the timing of slides. This recording can then be used to play back the presentation automatically. You can also use this timing to export the presentation as a video.

The top row of keys on your Apple keyboard features items like brightness, Mission Control, Dashboard, and volume controls. These can also be shortcuts to the appropriate System Preference controls with the addition of the Option key. For instance, hold down Option plus one of the volume buttons and you will get the Sound controls. Hold down option plus one of the brightness keys and you get the Display controls. Note that if you have turned on the F-keys in your keyboard preferences then you will need to hold down the FN key as well.

Markers are a simple tool in iMovie that allow you to create points in your video where the playback head and other elements will snap. You can use them to mark places to add things later, or to let you easily line up overlays, titles or other elements. You can add markers while the video is playing in the preview pane. They are similar to beat markers in previous versions of iMovie.

While you can use a variety of tools to create basic slideshows, Keynote may be the most powerful tool for quickly creating interesting photo slideshows. You can instantly create a slideshow by dragging and dropping photos from the Finder into the thumbnail list in Keynote. You can then add transitions, text, shapes and other objects to slides as needed. You can also interject other types of slides. There are many export options as well, including video and HTML for your web site.

In Mavericks Mail you can have multiple windows open at once. This helps if you need to refer to more than one message or mailbox at a time, or if you have multiple email accounts and want to see the message lists in separate windows. Just choose File, New Viewer Window.

You can set your text to appear in one, two or more columns. Using multiple columns can make it easier to include elements like photos in your documents. You can flow your text between different numbers of columns on a single page, but it can be trickily to implement.

Numbers can automatically fill in cells for you if you want to repeat a value, or create a sequence. You can use Autofill to add a set of sequential numbers or dates to cells. You can also have the cells follow a pattern. If you are using tables properly, formulas included in cells will repeat as you add new rows to the table.

You probably knew that you could use the Maps app in Mavericks to get directions. And likewise with the Maps app on your iPhone. But you can also figure out a route on your Mac and then send it to your iPhone. After getting Directions, choose File, Share and you should see your iPhone in the list as long as you are logged into the same iCloud account. Then on your iPhone, tap the Directions button at the upper left and you will see the route in the list.

Once you have created your video masterpiece, you may want to put some professional-looking credits at the end. You can do this with the Scrolling Credits title effect in iMovie. But with a little work, you can make the credits look even better by moving them over and adding images that appear to the left as the credits scroll by.

You can use the Finder's search function to find files by content or name. You can further narrow the field by adding more search criteria, like file type and date. You can also save searches as Smart Folders that will automatically update to show you the latest results for specific criteria as the files on your drive change.

In some situations, like demonstrating something on a large screen in front of an audience, it can be useful to increase the size of your cursor. You can do this in Mavericks by going to System Preferences, Accessibility, Display and then adjusting the Cursor Size slider.

You can use keyboard shortcuts to easily capture your Mac's screen, or a portion of the screen. Different shortcuts indicate whether you want to save the capture to a file or to the clipboard to paste into a document. You can also use the Grab tool for timed captures, and QuickTime Player for video captures.

You can use text hyperlinks to create complex navigation between slides in Keynote. In this example, we'll create a quiz that links answers to different slides. You can export this type of presentation as HTML, or use it in Keynote with settings to lock out other types of navigation.

Having trouble keeping track of time while you work? You can have your Mac speak the time aloud every hour, half hour or 15 minutes. You can find this option in System Preferences, Date & Time, Clock. You can even pick the voice.

Learn how to use the IF function to perform calculations in Numbers. IF is an important function to learn if you want to graduate to creating more advanced spreadsheets. You can use it to test a value in one cell and return two different values depending on the results of that test. Also learn related functions like SUMIF and COUNTIF.

You can use the change tracking feature in pages to pass a document between multiple writers or editors and see suggestions from each. Change tracking will record deletions, changes and notes with the name of the editor. You can review the changes and incorporate them into the final document.

To rename files in the Finder many people still select the file, then click on the file name, then wait a second, then type once the name has been selected. But power users know that the quicker way to do it is to select the file and hit the Return key on your keyboard. This instantly selects the name and you can type immediately. By default, only the name before the file extension is selected, but a quick Command+A selects the whole thing. Or, you can hit the right arrow key to jump to the end of the main file name, or the left to jump to the beginning for quick appending or prepending.