MacMost: Video Podcast

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.

You can use QuickTime Player in Lion to capture a single frame of video and save it to an image file. By using the Edit, Copy command you can grab the current frame, and then paste it into Photoshop or Preview. You can also use this technique to quickly grab a still image when using iMovie.

If you have an Airport Extreme or a Time Capsule you can create a separate guest network. This appears as a different wi-fi network than your main one. Users of the guest network cannot see the computers or other devices on the main network. Setting one up in advance is a good idea so you can grant visitors access to your Internet connection without worry.

While iMovie doesn't really have any audio effects, its sibling app GarageBand allows you to take video clips, or an exported iMovie video and apply all sorts of effects. You can change voices, echo, distort, and so on. You can apply the change to the whole video, or only a portion. You can use the same techniques in regular audio projects.

Uninstalling apps is easy in Mac OS X Lion. If you have purchased an app in the Mac App Store, you can use Launchpad to quickly remove them. Otherwise, you can still use the basic techniques of simply dragging an application to the trash, or running its uninstaller program.

Preference files store your preferences and data for each application. Find out where they are and what they look like. In some cases you may want to delete or restore an old copy of a preference file.

You can buy gifts in iTunes for your friends and family. You can gift songs, albums and iOS apps. They would get a code and use that to purchase the specific item in iTunes. You can also buy them Apple and iTunes gift cards. You can send them via email, or order a physical one with a special message.

One feature of Siri is the ability to dictate text instead of typing on your iPhone. Siri recognizes words and needs no special training. You can also type punctation and special symbols and commands.

There's a lot you can do with the calendar creation feature in iPhoto 11. You can use your own photos and iCal calendars to order a printer calendar from Apple, or print it yourself. You can also export the pages from a calendar to a PDF or even create an image from it.

You can use Siri like a personal assistant by creating notes simply by speaking. You can create new notes, or even add to existing ones. Siri can also search your notes. In the Reminders app you can create different lists, and then use Siri to add items to that list.

The new iTunes Match service from Apple allows you to keep your entire music collection in the cloud. You can access all of your songs from any Mac or iOS devices you own. Find out what it does and how it works.

If your internal drive is getting full and you want to move your iTunes music to an external drive, you can do so by using functions built right into iTunes. Keep your iTunes Library on your internal drive, but move your music to an external drive. That way you move the bulk of your files to your external drive, but keep all of the primary functionality of your iTunes Library on your internal one.

On the iPhone 4S you can use Siri for a variety of time-based functions. You can create simple alarms in your Clock app with Siri and even change alarms. You can also start, pause and stop timers. You can also create more complex reminders that then sync across your devices with iCloud. Reminders can be location-based as well as time-based.

There are many options for formatting cells in iWork Numbers. You can choose the number of decimal places, or use fractions. You can format as currency or choose a different base system. You can choose from a variety of date and time formats. You can also create steppers, sliders and pop-up menus to make it easy to change values to cells. Conditional formatting allows you to have cells that change color and style with certain values or ranges.

When you sync photos from your computer to your iPhone you will get an album named Photo Library in your Photos app. This isn't an album, but a complete list of all of the synced photos on your iPhone. It will include those in albums and events you have synced, but the photos are really only on your iPhone once. The Photo Library is just a way to view of list of all of these photos instead of viewing them by album or event.

Learn how to use keyframes to animate video in Final Cut Pro X. You can scale and reposition video clips between keyframes to create a variety of special effects. The example used is video shrinking to the center and then moving to a corner. You can also use keyframe animation to rotate, distort, color adjust or fade a clip.

You can control a Keynote presentation on a Mac with your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad using the Keynote Remote app. But this requires that both the Mac and iOS device be on the same wi-fi network. In cases where you don't have a wi-fi network, such as a presentation hall or classroom, you can establish your own local network using your Mac, and connect to it with your iOS device. This allows you to control the Keynote presentation directly from your device to the Mac.

In your Mac's Applications folder you've got a Calculator app that you probably haven't given a second look. This is much more than a simple utility. You can use it in scientific and programmer mode, convert units, time and currency, work in octal and hexadecimal, produce a tape of your calculations, and even get it to talk to you.