MacMost: Video Podcast

Learn about the Snow Leopard firewall. You can turn it on in your system preferences and it will block unwanted access to your Mac from inside your network or while you are on a public network.

You can use Preview in Snow Leopard to merge documents and pages within documents. It works a little differently than it did in Leopard because you can have multiple documents in the sidebar which can confuse things.

There are many ways to export your video from iMovie. Using the Sharing menu, you can go directly to iTunes, iDVD, YouTube and more. But using the Export Movie and Export using QuickTime options give you greater control.

Defragmentation was a common technique among Mac-using professionals in the 1990s. But with Mac OS X and today's hardware, do you still need to run defragmentation software?

If you have a large iTunes library, you may want to consider moving it to an external drive. You can also have some of your media on an external drive without having to move the library. Take a look at three methods of handing an iTunes library on an external drive.

You can run Windows on your Mac using either Boot Camp, a virtualization solution like Parallels, VMWare Fusion or VirtualBox, or a Win32 API solution like Wine to run individual applications. See the advantages and disadvantages of each.

The free Mac OS X extension Growl allows some of your applications to send you screen and audible notifications when events occur, like incoming email or completed downloads. You can even pass these notifications on to your iPhone. Check it out to see if it is something you can use.

When you print documents from your Mac just to read them away from your desk, you can choose Layout in the print dialog to save paper. You can put 2, 4 or more pages onto one sheet of paper this way. It is handy for long documents and multi-page receipts.

You can easily export vCards from the Mac OS X Address Book and send them in email messages. The recipient can then easily add all of your contact information to their Address Book or other contact management software.

You can use the Safari Bookmarks Bar to store you more often accessed bookmarks. But you can also use folders there to store larger numbers of bookmarks and groups of related bookmarks.

The Trash in Mac OS X is a failsafe device to prevent you from accidentally deleting items. But many people use it as a holding place for files that they aren't sure about. Learn how to use the Trash properly so you keep files around that you may need, and delete only the ones you are sure you want to get rid of forever.

If you add birthdays to your contacts in Address Book, it will create a special Birthdays calendar in iCal. You can use this to keep track of your friends' birthdays, although functionality is very limited.

Package files are somewhere between folders and disk images. The most notable one is your iPhoto Library, which is a collection of files protected inside a package file that you can still open and view. Installers are another common type of package file.

The free program Scratch from MIT allows you to learn how to program using a simple drag-and-drop interface. You can make and share your own games. You can even view examples made by others. This is great for children and adults who want to learn basic programming.

Most video cameras produce files in a format that iMovie can handle right away. However, some cameras use special video formats that iMovie can't read without your help. There are three strategies you can use to get incompatible video into iMovie: installing software that comes with your camera, researching solutions on the company Web site, or converting the video using free third-party tools.

You can go even further with Print As PDF by printing into Preview and then saving the preview document. You can reduce the file size or apply any number of Quartz filters. You can even make your own filter. You can also save as an encrypted PDF.

If you have a wireless network at home you should set up wireless security. It is as simple as setting a password through the Airport Utility application or the Web interface of your wireless router. This will not only prevent others from accessing your network and using your Internet connection, but it will also encrypt your data.

Learn how to walk away from your Mac without worrying about others easily getting access to your data or messing up your settings. By setting your Mac to log you out, or require a password when you have left it, you can walk away from a Mac in a semi-public area like your work space or home office.

Text Clippings allow you to save pieces of text as small files in the Finder and drag them into text documents and fields. You can create them by dragging text from an application to the Finder.

Gary Rosenzweig tackles the controversial question of whether you need to buy anti-virus software for your Mac. There are currently no active Mac viruses and anti-virus software could cause unexpected problems. Staying informed and up-to-date is a better option.