MacMost: Video Podcast

When users first switch to Gmail from an older email service, it is hard to understand the concept of labels and an All Mail folder. With Gmail, you wouldn't typically delete email, but simply add or remove labels. These labels look like folders when you use Apple's Mail program, but understanding how they really work will help you use your Gmail account.

Learn how to add page numbers to the bottom or top of your word processing documents in Pages. You can also add the total number of pages. Find out how to get the page numbers to appear on the left and right sides of facing pages.

Using the Address Book app you can print out lists of contacts, specifying exactly which fields you want to include. You can also print compact pocket lists that can easily be carried with you.

You can download free Apple user manuals right from Apple. Almost all Apple products have PDF files that serve as user manuals. You just need to know where to look. Once downloaded they can be easily read and searched.

You can use mail merges for more than just letters and envelopes. You can create your own custom spreadsheets of data in Numbers, and then merge that with a custom Pages document for interesting results. In this example, a small list of school test results is printed on individual pages.

If you have several people in your household and want to share iOS apps between them, you can do it with iTunes Home Sharing. But turning on Home Sharing on each computer, and then authorizing each other to use purchased items from each others' accounts, you can drag and drop apps in iTunes. Then sync with your iOS devices to put those apps on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.

You can create the same charts in Keynote as you can in Numbers and Pages. But with Keynote you can animate them. You can have the different parts of a bar graph, line graph or pie chart appear using different transition effects. Then you can export the result as a video to use in iMovie.

There are several ways to export bookmarks in Safari. You can use these techniques to archive old bookmarks and clean up your list in Safari. You can also create handy lists of links that can be stored elsewhere or uploaded to a web site.

You can print both labels and envelopes from Address Book without needing to do a mail merge or use another app. You can choose from many different standard label templates or create your own. You can also choose different envelope sizes. You can print them in bulk, or just use this feature to print a single envelope.

When taking your US Apple products to Europe, you only need to bring a simple and cheap plug adapter. The power adapters that come with MacBooks, iPads, iPhones and iPods are all universal adapters that work with 100V to 220V. There is no need for an expensive and heavy power converter.

Learn to use header and footer rows in iWork Numbers. Footers allow you to easily perform functions, like sums and averages on entire columns. Headers can remain at the top of the screen as you scroll. Both can be used to keep calculations and titles separate from sorted data in the body of a spreadsheet.

iCloud services are tied into apps like Mail, iCal and Address Book. But you can also access your data through the iCloud.com web site. This allows you to get your email and access your events and contacts even when you are using a computer that doesn't have iCloud. The web-based apps are very sophisticated, offering almost the same functionality as the full apps, and often more functionality than the iOS apps. You can also use iCloud.com to transfer documents between your Mac and iOS devices, even in Lion.

Mac cleaning apps are being advertised heavily across the Internet. But do you need these programs? Some of what they do is already being done by OS X. And most of the rest is simply an effort to remove a small number of files from your drive and give you more drive space. But you can do better by archiving projects and keeping your documents tidy on your own.

Many people often wonder what export settings to use in iMovie in order to create the best DVDs. But DVDs are standard definition, and any video you export from iMovie will be re-encoded into a special DVD format. So it is merely a matter of exporting at the best settings available and then letting your DVD software use the best version of the video possible to create the DVD.

At the Worldwide Developer Conference Apple announced the next generation MacBook Pro complete with a retina display, the first Mac to get such a screen. In addition, Mountain Lion's release date was specified as this July, and iOS 6 for iPhones, the iPod touch and the iPad was announced. The new iOS will feature Facebook integration, a new Maps app and other new features.

If you are a recent switcher to Macs, you may be having trouble adjusting to the Apple keyboard and the way keyboard shortcuts work. Learn about the Command key and how to get to some basic keyboard shortcuts. Learn the Mac equivalents to how to change a file name, copy a file and Control+Alt+Delete.

After you have made many iMovie projects, you may want to remove them from your projects and events lists. This can be as easy as just moving the folders and files from your movies folder. If you want to go back to that project, simply move the files and folders back to their original locations.

While you may never need to go into your Mac's Library folders, it can be enlightening to know what they are used for and what is inside. This is where things like fonts, caches, preferences files and application support files are stored.

If you carry around USB flash drives, you may want to consider password protecting them in case they are lost or stolen. It is easy to format a drive with encryption using the OS X Disk Utility app.

Learn how to make playlists of your favorite songs and share them with friends. You can burn various types of CDs. You can also share your playlist online with friends using Ping, or gift a whole custom-made album of music to a friend.