MacMost: MacMost Now

Occasionally the fix for an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch problem is to 'backup and restore' your device. This tutorial walks you through the steps using iTunes 11. You basically make sure your device is synced and backed up. Then you use iTunes to perform the simple, but often time-consuming, restore.

Spotify is a competitor to iTunes that streams music to your Mac or iOS device. A free account allows you to listen to music with ads on your Mac, but a premium account lets you download music for offline listening and also use your iOS device to listen. The service is only as good as its catalog of music, and Spotify is far from perfect in that respect.

You can store bookmarks in Safari in four places: the bookmarks bar, the bookmarks menu, custom bookmarks folders and Top Sites. See how to create custom folders and how to choose where to store bookmarks and how to move and re-arrange them.

There are a variety of effects in Pixelmator that you can use to make subtle or extreme changes to your images. You can apply simply adjustments, or add new elements. You can apply effects to an entire image, or just a selection. Take a look at some examples and then try to play with effects yourself.

Often the fastest and easiest way to get a document to your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch is to use DropBox. This service and free app allow you to sync a folder between your computer and your iOS device using the free app. So you can quickly drag and drop files to your DropBox folder and then they will appear on your iOS device. You can use the app to view a variety of file types.

Pages comes with templates that can make creating documents easy. For instance, you can use one of the certificates templates to make up fun awards for home or work. You can use the flyers templates to create for sale signs to post in your neighborhood. You can also use templates to make quick newsletters and brochures. You can get more templates from the Mac App Store.

Have you ever missed a post on Facebook simply because Facebook didn't show it in your 'Top Stories' list? You can avoid this using one of two techniques. The first is to simply switch to viewing your Most Recent posts instead of Top Stories. But you can also create a custom list that includes some or all of your friends and bookmark that so you can view everything without missing a post.

With iOS 6 you can take panoramic photos using an iPhone 5, iPhone 4s or the 5th generation iPod touch. Panoramas can be used to capture a landscape, but they can also be used for up-close wide or tall shots. They work best if objects are not moving, but can tolerate some movement. Since they are a composition of several photos, they are more detailed than a single shot. You can use panoramas to create some interesting photos.

Learn how to use the clone tool in Pixelmator. This drawing tool can be useful for adding additional copies of repeating objects, like flowers in a flowerbed, to your photos. You can also use it to clone an uneven background to remove objects from a photo without leaving an obvious empty space in the photo.

The new iTunes 11 has several improvements and new features you should know about. You can also learn how to bring back the left sidebar. Learn about the new Up Next list and how you can view your music library by song, artist, album and sort in various ways. There is also a new way to search for content in your library.

When purchasing a new Mac, you may want to pick up some accessories to go along with it. Which accessories you pick depends on your needs. A Time Machine hard drive is a must. Some people may want a printer, while other may want a scanner to go paperless. You may want to consider a network router, UPS or MacBook case as well. A set of EarPods can come in handy as a small headset for those that record audio or video or use FaceTime often.

If you use an external drive to share music, photos or other files, then you should know about the "Ignore ownership on this volume" option. This allows you to have multiple users on the same Mac, or multiple users across several Macs to have the same access to files and folders regardless of which user put them there. It can greatly simplify sharing the data on an external drive.

If you wish to delete photos from iPhoto, you must first understand the difference between events and albums. However, you can still use Albums to delete photos if you know how. You can also use flagging to select photos to delete. There are several ways to review your photos before you delete them, and you can also archive photos as files before removing them from your iPhoto library.

Check out some gift ideas for Apple fans that cost less than $100. See Gary's picks for his favorite iPhone cases to give as gifts. Consider ideas like AirPrint printers, iPhone tripod adapters and the Apple TV. Also get some other ideas that are fun and unusual, in addition to being practical.

Every iOS device comes with an array of physical switches on the body. You can use the Home button for various tasks, as well as the weak/sleep button. The side switch and volume controls can be used for more than just controlling volume. You can also combine the switches and use movement to activate some functions.

There are many ways to password protect and encrypt small pieces of data on a Mac. You can use Keychain Access to encrypt a note in your keychain. You can use Disk Utility to create a small encrypted disk image. The app Evernote allows you to encrypt a piece of text inside a note. You can also use the Terminal to create a password protected zip file.

Learn how to use layers in Pixelmator. You can place one image on top of the other and then use masks to blend them. You can use a simple clipping mask to quickly reveal only part of an image. You can use a layer mask to create cool effects like blending two images together gradually.

Take a look at iBooks reading options on the iPad. WIth iBooks 3 you can change the font, font size, background style and even switch to a continuous scrolling mode. Each style has its merits depending on what you like, the size of your iPad and whether you are holding it horizontally or vertically. But textbooks and PDFs will not give you as many options.

It is quick and easy to create an online survey using Google Drive. You can simply add some questions to a form and then publish it, sending the link to the people you wish to take the survey. You can then get the results in a spreadsheet. It is so easy to create one of these that you can use them to help with all sorts of work, school or personal tasks.

There are various ways you can automatically fill cells in Numbers. You can copy and paste to quickly fill cells one time. Or, you can construct your table so cells automatically fill in as you expand the table. You can also fill in cells with a series like months, dates, numbers or letters.