MacMost: MacMost Now

Learn how to add keyboard shortcuts to your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Keyboard shortcuts can make it much easier to type using the on-screen keyboard. You can substitute short groups of letters for longer phrases, like 'em' for your email address or 'icu' for 'I'll call you later.'

Keeping your Address Book contacts in a good state is even more important now because of integration with iCloud, iOS 5 and social networks. There are several fields in Address Book that are more than just bare information. Learn the special properties of the birthday, nickname, phonetics and URL fields.

While Siri has brought speech commands to the iPhone 4S, Mac users have long had the ability to speak commands to your computers. Learn how to enable Speakable Items on your Mac, find out which commands work and how. You can also add custom commands and have your Mac speak to you.

iOS 5 for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad has a great set of accessibility features that can be useful for just about anyone. You can zoom in on the screen, change the font size for some apps, have your iPhone speak text on web pages and in documents, use multi-touch gestures with just one finger, and even set custom vibration sequences.

Reminders are calendar events that can be used as to-do items or alerts. They sync between your Macs and iOS devices. They can also be set as location-based alerts on the iPhone. You can use Siri to create new reminders on the iPhone 4S.

See how you can use iCloud to view the same contacts, calendars and bookmarks across you Macs and iOS devices. You can also work on Pages, Numbers and Keynote documents across iOS devices and access them on your Mac as well.

Siri is the new voice-controlled personal assistant in the iPhone 4S. Sir has a sense of humor. You can ask Siri some things and get some funny, weird or even bizarre answers. Watch to see 50+ examples of the funny things that Siri says.

Take a look at the new iPhone 4S. It has a faster processor, new antenna design, and new camera. It also allows you to mirror the screen through a cable or AirPlay to Apple TV 2. The biggest new feature may be Siri, the voice activated assistant. It even has a sense of humor.

Take a look at the new features in iOS 5. New apps like Reminders and Messages add new functionality. Notifications now have a wider set of options. Twitter is built in to many apps. You can move and split the on-screen keyboard. You can sync with iCloud and use an iOS device independent of any computer.

A common troubleshooting technique is to reset your PRAM. This will occasionally clear up problems with your Mac. Learn about PRAM, what it is and how to reset it. Also learn about SMC.

Reflecting back on Steve Jobs' life, here are seven things that I admired about this self-made man. He was an innovator, improver, showman, and and enthusiast. We was also imperfect and uncompromising.

Apple announced the new iPhone 4s. The new phone will include a faster processor, better camera and come with the ability to listen and respond to voice commands and take dictation. The new phone comes out on October 14. It will also be available on Sprint for the first time. iOS 5 and iCloud will come out on October 12 for some older iOS devices.

There are some odd and unusual things on your Mac that you can do with the Terminal. You can create banners, use your screen saver as your desktop background, look at interesting, daily calendars, and play hidden games.

If you want to view a folder full of photos in the Finder, you can do it using one of several Finder window views. You can also enlarge the icons, use Quick Look or Preview.

When your hard drive is full it is time to look through your files and determine what you should archive or just delete. Old video files and applications you are no longer using are common culprits. A drive that is almost full can slow down your Mac.

You can combine different elements of iMovie to create your own effects and titles. As an example, learn how to create scrolling end credits that include still images fading in and out on the left.

Smart Playlists in iTunes are lists of songs that automatically update according to search criteria. You can create a Smart Playlist that looks for songs in your library according to how recently they were added or played, or how you have rated them, their genres and other properties.

Check out Gary's list of apps that he suggests most people install on a new Mac on the first day. The list includes some utilities and browser plug-ins. You can get the links and make your own suggestions at https://macmost.com/must-have-lion-apps

In addition to using DropBox to sync files between your Macs, you can also use it to share files with friends. You can make a file public and provide your friends with a link to it. You can also share a folder between friends with DropBox accounts. There is even a special photo galleries folder that will allow you to share photos easily.

A portable Mac using Lion and Time Machine creates local snapshots of new and modified files when it cannot access its TIme Machine drive. These local snapshots can be used to recover deleted or mistakenly modified files. They take advantage of unused space on your hard drive and adjust according to how much space you have available.