Posts By: Gary Rosenzweig

A third grade class in Culver City, California is looking to get an iMac so they can produce and edit movies. They are using old G4 iMacs and really need something newer to let the kids be more creative. Join MacMost in supporting this project.

You can show your iPad or iPhone screen on your television wirelessly using your Apple TV 2. You need the latest iOS device and the Apple TV 2. You can also do it with cable adapters. The result is you can see whatever is on your iOS screen on your TV.

You can create nice-looking printouts from Numbers, but the options to do so aren't always obvious. Learn how to view your spreadsheets in layout view, adjust scaling, darken borders and use styles and design elements to create nicer Numbers printouts.

Parents of kids who have an iPad or iPod touch may want to know how to control restrictions in iOS Settings. It is fairly simple to restrict content like movies, music and apps. You can also set the device so your kids can't add new apps or change email or other settings.

Apple completed the holiday shopping season by giving away free shipping on products from its online stores. First it offered free two-day shipping, and then it upped that to free next-day shipping this week. In addition, it seems that most Apple stores offer in-store pickup of items ordered online.
In iTunes news, Apple added a “Complete My Season Pass” to the iTunes store that allows you to purchase the entire season of a TV show at a reduced price if you have already purchased some episodes individually. This is similar to the “Complete My Album” feature already in place for music. And that feature has been updated to remove a time limit that previous meant you could only complete an album within 180 days of purchasing the first track.
Apple is in the process of buying flash memory and chip design company Anobit. Since the iPhone, iPad, iPod and even some Macs use Flash memory, it is important for Apple to continue to be a leader in this area.

A school in Charlotte, North Carolina is looking to get an iPad. The idea is to give at-risk students the opportunity to learn with the aid of an iPad and educational apps. Join MacMost in supporting this project.

The talk of the App world these last few weeks has been Waze. A social networking app for drivers. To begin with it is a free GPS navigation app with voice directions. But it also links you to others on the road and past history of the road. So you can also know about that accident or speed trap up ahead.

There is a way to force quit an iOS app on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch without ever leaving the app. Hold down the sleep/wake button at the top of your device until the “Slide to power off” screen appears. Then, hold down the Home button for about 7 seconds. The currently running app will quit.

“You want an iPad 3? Kid, I may be able to fly around the world and deliver presents to every child in a single night, but I can’t perform the impossible!”

You can use the QuickTime Player in Lion to make quick changes to your videos rather than starting an iMovie project. You can merge videos, trim them, split and re-arrange sections of a video and export in standard QuickTime format. You can also rotate video that has been shot in the wrong orientation.

All iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users should know how to use the multitasking bar. It allows you to view your recently used apps, quit apps, control audio playback and AirPlay streaming. Learn how to access and use it. Also learn how to quit an app without using the multitasking bar at all.

You can place chapter markers while creating video projects in iMovie. These can be used to jump to parts of your video while viewing it in QuickTime Player, iTunes or on iOS and Apple TV. You can also use chapter markers to quickly create DVDs with iDVD that include those markers. Chapter markers and comments can both be used in your project to allow to you jump to specific times while you are editing.

Everyone’s been in this situation: you want to return to a web page you visited a few days ago, but can’t remember what site it was on. You can find it pretty easily by searching your Safari history. Just go to History, Show All History and look for the search field at the upper right. Type in keywords to narrow down the search and find the page you are looking for. Since you’ll only see pages you visited, it will be a lot easier than searching the entire web.

Apple began offering iTunes Match in more countries this week, starting with Brazil and including some other countries such as the U.K, France, Australia and New Zealand. However, shortly after appearing for those countries the service disappeared and Apple refunded customers who had signed up. Apparently the service was turned on prematurely. It still remains available in the U.S. and Brazil. But this may indicate that a real international launch is just around the corner.
Apple issued a number of updates this week, including version 10.5.2 update for iTunes and a Thunderbolt display firmware update. Microsoft issued updates to Office for Mac 2011 and the previous version, 2008. They address security and stability issues.

A teacher in Milwaukee is looking to get an iPad for her students who have cognitive disabilities. They would use the iPad to help them communicate and to help them participate in regular classrooms. Join MacMost in supporting this project.

Now here’s a game that is highly addictive. Dragonvale is an ingenious game where you run a breed and raise cute little dragons. Before you know it you are building habitats, decorating your park and contemplating breeding combinations. This game is getting so popular that there are many sites now dedicated to it. It is a freemium game, meaning that you can download it and play for free, with in-app purchasing of items used merely to speed things up. At the very least you need to get this game and try it out, so you know what everyone else is raving about.

“I started using iTunes Match the other day. It works great, but everything I listen to now sounds a little more like Coldplay.”

The Dictionary app in your Applications folder can not only tell you the definitions of regular words, but it also contains a special Apple dictionary to help you understand your Mac. You can look up Mac-related terms and get quick definitions. You can also use its Wikipedia function to get even more detailed information about technology.

You can move your iPhoto library to an external drive easily by simply dragging the iPhoto library package to another location. But keep in mind that external drives are slower than internal ones, and networked drives even more so. You can also create multiple iPhoto libraries, storing seldom-accessed photos elsewhere.

Tab stops allow you to align text in word processing programs. They have been around for a while, but if you have only started using word processors recently, you may have overlooked them in favor of tables and other layout elements. Tab stops are a quick and easy way to display data neatly inside a document.