MacMost: MacMost Now

Episode 833 contained some useful Google search tricks. Here are 10 more. Learn how to translate a word, graph a formula, get the time in another city, lookup stock information, pronounce a word, list recent earthquakes and more. Also see some Google easter eggs and how to list all Google Doodles.

When sharing links with friends, long URLs can cause issues as they take up a lot of space in tweets and text messages, and can wrap across multiple lines in emails. You can use one of the many free URL shortening services to turn any URL into a very short one. These will redirect to the original page. The danger in using URL shorteners is that you can't be certain where a link leads. But browser extensions and the URL shortening services can help with that.

While the Dashboard and Widgets are neat and can be very useful to some, not everyone uses them. If you find yourself accidentally triggering the Dashboard every once in a while, you can easily disable the keyboard shortcut and gesture that brings it up. You can also remove widgets from the Dashboard so it uses less resources. As an extreme measure, you can completely disable the Dashboard with a command in the Terminal window.

It can sometimes be difficult to use a file open dialog box to choose the right photo. But by using the different modes of the Finder, and also Quick Look preview, you can enlarge the preview of each photo to make it easier.

Instead of using sync settings to decide what music to put on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, you can set iTunes to let you manually drag and drop music and video into your device. This lets you have finer control over exactly which songs are on the device. You can also get media on to your device without it needing to be in your iTunes library. Another advantage is that you can transfer media from a second Mac to your device without needing to erase the existing media.

http:.//macmost.com/e-899 You can decide what types of files appear in the Spotlight menu when you search. You can remove types, and also re-arrange them so the ones important to you appear first. You can also hide folders from Spotlight searches to reduce your results. You can also search for a specific type of file on a case-by-case basis.

Creating an animated GIF from a video is easy if you have an app to do it. Learn how to use GIFBrewery to create a quick GIF from a video. You can view these GIFs in the Finder, or in a web browser. You can also share them and upload them to many web sites.

You can copy and paste complex objects between apps, and the apps will do the best they can with the objects. Between very compatible apps like Pages and Keynote, you get an exact copy of the object, with properties still editable. Pasting into apps like TextEdit or an image editor, you'll often get a simpler by usable image instead of the original object.

It is important to lock your Mac when you are away from it and in other situations. Learn how to set a hot corner and use a keyboard shortcut to quickly lock your Mac once you have set things up in System Preferences.

If you use and iPhone and travel outside of your home territory, you may run into huge phone bills when you return unless you sign up for the right services. Be sure to log on to your carrier's system before you leave and sign up for voice, text and data plans to fit your needs. Or, be sure to set your phone so it never tries to use mobile networks so you won't be charged. (Apologies for the audio quality on this one!)

When you travel with Apple devices there are some small accessories that you can bring along to help you connect and use your devices. See which simple and cheap accessories I bring along when traveling.

You can set iPhoto and Aperture to use an external app to edit photos instead of merely using the adjustment and filter editing in the apps. You can set iPhoto to use Pixelmator, but Photoshop works more smoothly when trying to save back into your library.

When you type a link in a word processor, it often converts that link to clickable text. But if you are writing a document for print, or just don't want the link to be clickable, then you need to change it to normal text. You can do this on a case-by-case basis by simply using Undo. Or, you can change preferences to stop these links from appearing in the first place. Learn how to do this in TextEdit, Pages and Microsoft Word.

The free GeekTool app allows you to put images, file content and shell script output right on your Desktop background. You can use this to customize your desktop in a variety of ways, such as showing current weather, news or financial information. Or, you can use it to monitor your Mac or systems on the Internet.

Game Center is a universal high score system provided by Apple that many app developers can use in their games. Once you extend your Apple ID to use Game Center, you can compete in high score leaderboards, challenge friends and register in-game achievements.

An often-requested feature of Mac Mail is the ability to tag messages with keywords. While full tagging ability isn't included in Mail, you can add colored flags to messages to help you organize them. You can even rename the flags to make them more useful. But for true tagging ability, you would need a third-party extension like MailTags.

When you download an app from the iOS or Mac App Stores, you have the ability to then go back to the store and leave a review. Here is how to get to the review form. There are also some general guidelines you may want to follow when writing a review. Make sure you review the app, not the App Store system. If the app isn't the one you wanted, don't review the app based on your misconception. Also take price into consideration and don't use the review process as a way to get support from the developer.

Creating useful spreadsheets is usually a matter of combining several techniques. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to create a table to hold a small database of information. Then, you'll create a second table to count the number of records that have certain criteria. Finally, you'll use the second table to create a pie chart. Each element updates automatically as new records are added or changed.

The latest version of Pixelmator introduces a handy new way to select part of an image. You can paint with a brush to add to or remove from a selection and cut out a person or object. You can then apply filters to that selection, or invert the selection to apply filters everywhere else.

Ruby is a popular programming language that comes installed on your Mac and can be accessed in the Terminal. You can use the Rub command line interpreter to run simple programs in a single line. You can also write more complex programs in a text file and run them. This gives you similar functionality to using BASIC on the Apple II.