Posts By: Gary Rosenzweig

If you want to turn off your screen fast you can activate display sleep with a keyboard combination. Shift+Control+Eject will do it. If you have a MacBook Air without an eject key, the power key in the upper right corner will work. Then press any key to turn the screen back on.

Learn how to control which apps send you notifications and how they do it. You can choose how and where the notification appears, whether the app puts numbers in the icon or plays sounds. You can also arrange the order for notifications when viewed in the notifications center.

Rumors this week have Apple working on a $800 MacBook model. Right now the cheapest MacBook is the $999 MacBook Air ($950 educational pricing). Does Apple need to have a cheaper MacBook model? Is $200 really enough to make a difference?

In OS X you have various ways of setting default applications for files and other actions. You can set your default email and web browser applications with settings in Mail and Safari. You can set what happens when you connect a camera or SD card, or insert an optical disc. You can also set which application will be used to open specific file types.

Learn about all of the different Safari browser preferences that affect security. You can find them in more places than just the Security tab. Learn what each one does to protect you while you surf online and decide what the best settings are for you.

“Now with the Mac App Store I’ve got awesome games too.”
“Dude, I played all of those games back in 2004.”

You know in sci-fi movies where they use little handheld devices to translate spoken language? Well the future may be here. The SayHi Translate app comes pretty close. Choose two languages and press one, then speak. The words you speak are translated into the other language and then spoken. The text appears on the screen so you know if it understood what you said first, and then you can see the translated result as well. This could become a must-have for travelers. It works like Siri in that it communicates with a server over the Internet for the heavy lifting.

Want to know what the official name of your Mac is? In Lion, go to the Apple menu and choose About This Mac. Then click on More Info. This launches System Information. With the overview tab selected, the name of your Mac is at the top. Examples: “Mac Pro, Early 2008,” “MacBook Air, 11-inch, Mid 2011” and “iMac, 21.5-inch, Mid 2011.” This name and date system can be used to identify your Mac when describing trouble, checking for compatibility, or reselling.

Hidden in your Applications/Utilities folder is the complex graphing program Grapher. You can use it to plot 2D and 3D equations on your Mac. You can also export 3D animated graphs. Very useful for math students or those who use complex equations in their work.

There are many ways to share music between computers and user accounts with iTunes. The one you choose depends on with which devices and computers your are sharing. iTunes Match may be the ultimate method for a single person, but iTunes Home Sharing allows you to share music with other people whom have separate iTunes accounts.

With AirPlay and the help of the Mac app AirServer, you can bring your iPad or iPhone's screen to your Mac. You can then capture the screen using your favorite video capture software. This new method replaces the old method of using expensive HDMI cables and capture hardware.

Once again Apple’s quarterly report wowed investors, causing the stock to surge on Wednesday. Apple announced a profit of $11.6 billion on $39.2 billion in revenue. It sold 35.1 million iPhones, 11.8 million iPads and 4 million Macs.
In a conference call after the announcement, Apple confirmed again that Mac OS 10.8, Mountain Lion, will be out in late summer. In the education market the iPad outsold Macs two to one. iCloud now has 125 million users.
On Wednesday Apple announced the dates for its annual Worldwide Developer Conference: June 11 to 15. Tickets sold out in two hours.

“This app warns you when guys are nearby who use apps to see when girls are nearby.”

With a Finder window selected, choose View, Customize Toolbar. Then drag a Path button to your Finder’s toolbar. This lets you quickly jump to the parent folder or any folder above the current one. You can do the same thing by using Control or Command and clicking on the Finder’s title bar, but a Path button may be easier for some to use.

Zaga 33 is an old school action puzzle game where you navigate one quick turn at a time while you try to make it through quick small levels and on to the next. For each move you make, your enemies make one, so plan accordingly.

With Preview in Lion, you can record your signature in Preview and then apply it to PDF files and other documents. Use your Mac's camera to take a picture of your signature. Add a variety of signatures and other stamps to your Preview preferences and use them with the annotations feature.

There are many things you should be doing with your Mac. But one is the most important of all: backing up. Any computer can have a hard drive failure, suffer from a user mistake or simply be stolen. Backing up is the most important thing that every Mac user should do.

There are many tips and tricks you can use to make it easier to type on the iPad. You can hold down keys to bring up special characters, ignore apostrophes and learn to tap-hold-release to get to some characters with less effort. Also learn about splitting and undocking the keyboard on the iPad.

Reports indicate that Apple is now offering MobileMe users free upgrades to Snow Leopard to help them transition to iCloud before the June 30 deadline. MobileMe users who are still using Leopard have been getting notices of the free offer. Previously $30, the Snow Leopard upgrade would give these users the Mac App Store, which is required to then purchase Lion, which is in turn required to get a free iCloud account. MobileMe is schedule to shut down on June 30.
For users of older Macs, there is no upgrade path. Both Snow Leopard and Lion require Intel processors. The transition from PowerPC to Intel processors began and was completed in 2006, making all PowerPC Macs at least 5 years old. However, some of the earliest Intel Macs do not support Lion as it requires at least an Intel Core 2 Duo processor.

If you want to shift an iCal event slightly, you can do so by selecting it and using Control+Up or Control+Down to move the start time in 15 minute increments, assuming you are in the daily or weekly view mode. Using Control+Shift+Up or Down will move the end time for the event. If you are in monthly view, then the event is moved by a whole week.