Nice iPad Video

PCMag.com reviewed the iPad and produced this very nice video that tells you all about it. Yes, the narrator speaks too rapidly, but you're in control-- put your mouse over the video and pause it if you need to (I did). Or grab the time (above the little stripe showing how much you've watched) and drag it back to the left to make the guy back up (I did that too).

PCMag: Apple iPad video review from PCMag.com Reviews on Vimeo.

First iPad Review(s)

David Pogue reviewed the iPad. Actually, he reviewed it twice. Worth a quick read.

iPhone as Magnifying Glass

I don't know why everything seems to be printed in itsy-bitsy type these days but armed with my trusty iPhone I can read almost anything. It's ridiculously easy. I don't know why it took so long to come up with the idea but it did.

All you do is use the iPhone's camera app to take a picture of the tiny type. Then, tap the icon at lower left to display the picture. Then, "un-pinch" to enlarge. Problem solved.

For example: I needed to get some numbers from the back of an Apple Time Capsule. I took the picture on the left, then stretched it until it was big enough to read. See for yourself.



This works with an iPad 2 also though not as well since the camera on the iPad 2 isn't very good.

You can of course aim the camera at the tiny type, then touch the screen, then use the zoom controls to zoom in without taking a picture but that doesn't work as well because it takes two hands and you don't end up with anything permanent. If you need to take another look you have to return to wherever it was that you didn't take the picture. Take the picture to begin with and have it forever.

iPad Video Tutorials

You may not have heard but Apple has something new called the iPad and it's coming out April 3rd (this Saturday). They've made some sales tools, I mean instructional videos, and you can watch them via this link. Warning: the videos are very well done and you may find yourself ordering an iPad after watching them.

Kids, take note: look at the hands in these iPad videos. Take care of your nails and you too could be an Apple "hand model." It beats working. Trust me.

Option Key tip #7: Option-Click

Ever click a link in Safari, hoping to download a PDF, and instead of downloading it opens up in the browser (or worse, in Acrobat)? That's a drag. Try it fifty times and fifty times it's the same-- you don't get a copy of your own.

Unless, of course, you hold the Option key when you click.

Here's a great example (he said modestly). Suppose you're looking for tax forms on the IRS website.


You find the form you want, and now you want to get a copy and save it to your hard disk. Without the Option key, when you click the Form 1040 link you see the form, but you don't have the form. Here's what it looks like in your browser:


Nice to look at, but it's not "yours." Try it again, but this time hold the Option key when you click the link. Presto!The file is downloaded to your Downloads folder, or to your Desktop, or wherever it is your downloads go. From there it's just another PDF, something you can double-click and open.

BONUS: Actually, you can do more than double-click and open it. You can fill it in! Try clicking on the 1040 form and typing. It works. And since it's "your" copy of the 1040, you can save it for later. Nice.

BONUS 2: If you can't find the file, and you're using Safari, go to the Window menu and choose "Downloads" (if you're using Firefox you'll find Downloads in the Tools menu. It works about the same way.). Safari's Downloads window will look something like this:

Double-click the 1040's icon to open it, or click once on the magnifying glass to reveal it in the Finder. You're on your own from there.

And that's seven.

Scammers Everywhere, and They Know Where You Live

I was in Round Rock, Texas last weekend and while there I used my MacBook to bring up the Los Angeles Times website. I noticed a couple of ads that mentioned a "Round Rock Mom" and wouldn't have thought much of it except that the "Round Rock Mom" looked familiar. The reason she looked familiar is that I'd seen her picture many times before while reading the Times from home in Santa Monica-- but, in those cases, she was cast as "Santa Monica Mom." Hmm.

Here's how it looked when viewed in Texas...


And here's how it looked when viewed in Santa Monica.


I suppose they could be twins. But probably not.

I clicked the links and shockingly they wanted to sell me something. Here's where they took me:

After clicking "Round Rock Mom"


After clicking "Santa Monica Mom"

I did appreciate that they personalized things to my location either way. "EXPOSED" indeed. Scam-o-matic.

But wait, there's more! While in Texas, I accidentally clicked an ad and found myself looking at a web page telling me that I (me!) was "Today's Lucky Texas Visitor!" See, it says so right on the web page.

I wondered a little bit about the snowflakes and the "Holiday" reference at the top, but for a free Apple iPad 2 who's complaining? I scrolled down a bit and saw a list of previous winners, and what do you know, someone in my own neighborhood was on the list. I didn't know who she was but it had her name and picture and it said "Round Rock, TX" and that "proved" it.


Just for laughs I connected to my machine in Santa Monica and brought up the same web page, clicked the ad, and up came the same web page. Except this time I was the Lucky California Visitor! What are the odds of THAT! I had visions of me carrying an iPad 2 in each arm, looking like Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments. (Please click the link.)


I scrolled down a bit to see the people who'd won before, and what a surprise to see our new friend Jennifer Layton-- except this time she lived in Santa Monica.

After seeing Jennifer in two places, I couldn't believe it either.

Turns out it is not very hard for a website programmer to determine the general location of your computer, based on your IP address. Try this link and see if it "knows" where you are. I'll bet it's pretty close. Eye-opening.

The point is, don't fall for the old "Gee, there's a picture of someone from my neighborhood, that makes this offer so much more believable" trick. It's probably faked. If you want $84 per hour, or an iPad 2, you're going to have to earn it. Sorry to be the one to tell you.

Please please please backup your Macs

Another hard drive bit the dust this week. This one was in a three year old MacBook. Fortunately, the machine had been backed up regularly using Time Machine. When the hard drive died we replaced it with a new one, started up from a Snow Leopard DVD, connected the backup drive, and copied everything from the backup to the new drive. It took about an hour to get the old drive out, the new drive in, and to set up the transfer from the backup, and another hour to actually do the transfer (giving us the opportunity to go for pastrami sandwiches). Without the backup we would have had to send the drive out for data recovery, leading to a big bill and several days of being without the machine. With the backup, it was no big deal.

I hope you're getting the message: hard drives eventually wear out. If yours hasn't yet, consider yourself lucky, but get an external disk and back your stuff up anyway. If you have questions about how to do it click this link and read all about it. If you're still stuck send me an email.

iTunes App Store Wish List

All of a sudden, the iTunes App Store has a "wish list" feature. Didn't used to, and it made shopping for apps a little harder than it had to be because you had to write down the names of apps that you thought you might want to go back to. Now (as of a week or so ago) it's all built in. Here's how it works:

1. Start iTunes and go to the "iTunes Store" section
2. Find an app that you want to add to your Wish List"
3. Click the little triangle to the right of "Buy this App" (or on free apps, to the right of "Free App"), revealing a menu
4. Choose "Add to Wish List" as shown in the picture below.

Note: if you add a free app to your Wish List you'll get this message:

They're probably right-- it's free now, but might not be when you decide to buy it. Just download the thing now and decide later whether you want it.

To see the items in your Wish List you go to the far RIGHT side of the iTunes window, click the tiny arrow to the right of your AppleID, and then choose "Wish List." Easy. Here's what it looks like, with the Magic Finger showing you where to click.


When the Wish List comes up it will look something like the picture below. And no, these aren't really things I want. They are just here to help you get the idea. If you really want to buy me something make it something involving coffee, chocolate, and whipped cream.

Neat stuff, and I think I will be using this quite a bit to help me remember various apps that I want to compare. Thanks, Apple. Very nice of you.

Option Key tip #6: Option-Drag

The Option Key Tip-a-Palooza continues with one of the handiest tips ever, namely the Option-drag technique. Basically, it comes down to this: when you drag things around they move, right? Right. Except if you hold the Option key! If you hold the Option key when you drag stuff you'll make copies.

Here's an example, using iCal.

Suppose you have an appointment on Tuesday, like so (light week):


Let's say you have such a great time eating ice cream on Tuesday that you want to do it again on Wednesday. If you drag that appointment to Wednesday it moves to Wednesday, and it's gone from Tuesday. Looks like this when you're done.


If what you really wanted to do is eat ice cream on Tuesday AND Wednesday you can do it-- just hold the Option key down while you drag! Here's what it looks like as you do it.



And here's what it looks like when you let go. I'm hungry.


This is much, much easier than entering an event twice. Or even copying and pasting. And it works in a lot more programs than just iCal, including...

The Finder (Option-drag to duplicate a file or folder)
Microsoft Word (highlight some text, Option-drag to insert that text somewhere else)
Microsoft Excel (highlight some cells, Option-drag (grab the EDGE of the selection) to copy those cells elsewhere. Great for headings!)

That's six.

Use Preview to Mark Up Images

Apple's Preview program is a lot more capable than most people think. Besides being the best way to open PDFs, JPEGs, and PNGs, Preview has annotation tools that let you mark things up. For example, let's say you take a screenshot of a Google Maps picture, like so...


... and you want to mark it up, like so.


Turns out it's pretty easy. Here's how to do it. (Note: the screenshots are from Lion's Preview program but most of the instructions will work with Preview in Snow Leopard.)

Open a picture in Preview and then show the Annotation Tools. Look for a stylized pen icon in Preview's toolbar. Click that and a bunch of tools appear. (In Snow Leopard the tools are at the bottom of the window.) Click it again and the tools go away.


Here are the tools.


You can probably figure out what they do... from left to right you have shapes and lines, text boxes, colors, line weights, fonts, and a list view of all of the annotations you've made, in the order you made them.

If you click on the shapes and lines button you'll be ready to draw a shape. If you click the little triangle that is next to the shape you will get a little menu, like so:

The text box, colors, and line weights buttons have menus as well.

Pick a shape or a line, then click and drag to draw. The things you draw will have selection handles so you can adjust things after the fact. HOWEVER... as soon as you Save your document, the annotations become permanent, unless you're working on a PDF. In that case, you'll be able to edit the annotations after a Save. Thus, if you're not working with a PDF, it might make sense to make a copy of your picture before opening it in Preview to do annotations. Just in case.

I use Preview's annotation tools all the time here on the Blog, including in this very post (I drew an oval around the Show Annotation Tools button, and drew a box around the tools themselves). Other programs have more sophisticated tools but Preview's tools are often enough (and you already have the app). Give Preview's annotation tools a try. I think you'll find them very handy.

Bigger is Better: Safari

(First in a series.)

A couple of weeks ago Mom was asking me how to make things bigger on her Mac. Naturally I had her select Displays from the System Preferences (under the Apple), and in there I had her choose any size that WASN’T the one with the largest numbers. Just as naturally, Mom didn’t like the way things looked, as there’s only one “sharp” resolution on an LCD screen, and that’s the one with the largest numbers. Yes, things were bigger, but no, they weren’t better. Try again, she said.

(Isn’t it funny how a person who wants things larger because the small type is too hard to see has no problem at all discerning the slight fuzziness present at larger sizes? Remarkable.)

If blowing up the entire screen (and losing quality in the process) wasn’t going good enough I was going to have to do it the hard way. Which is to say, go program by program and set the preferences in each to make things bigger. Today we’ll learn about doing that in Safari. We’ll cover Mail, the Finder, and a bunch of other programs later.

Safari 3 lets you make a website’s text larger (or smaller) in a couple of ways. First, you can go to the View menu and choose “Make Text Bigger” (or “Make Text Smaller”).



Another way to do it is to use the keyboard shortcuts next to the menu items for Make Text Bigger and Make Text Smaller: Command-Plus and Command-Minus. You don’t have to use the Shift key to do it-- just tap the + or the- while holding the Command key.

A third way is to click the “Big A” and “Small A” buttons on the toolbar. What, your toolbar doesn’t have those buttons? Solve that problem by going to Safari’s View menu and choosing Customize Toolbar...



Drag the two “Text Size” buttons up and onto the Toolbar, wherever they’re handy for you. When you’re done, click “Done,” and from then on all you have to do is click the big A to make the text bigger, and the small A to make the text smaller.

(Note to Safari 4 users: it works almost exactly the same way for you, except you’ll increase/decrease the size of the pictures as well as the text.)

Of the methods presented so far, I like Command-Plus and Command-Minus. But here’s another method that’s even better. At least sometimes.

Go to Safari’s Preferences (under the Safari menu) and click the Appearance button.


Jot down the information already in the box (Times 16 and Courier 13)-- you might want to change back to original settings one day-- then click each “Select...” button in turn and choose a larger size using the slider on the right. Don’t go crazy with it, and remember that you won’t see a change in every website (though you will on this one). Slide things around until it’s easy to read, and from then on your websites will load in the larger font. At least some of them will.

Cool stuff, eh?

A Few of my Favorite Apps

No, I'm not finished with the Option key Tip-a-Palooza. I just thought this iPhone appsfire thing was too cool not to share. You can find some neat apps by clicking here and going to the appsfire.com website. Or you can just do everything exactly the way I do it and make your iPhone just like mine.



Yes, those apps are on MY iPhone. I have many others but these are some of my favorites. Click anywhere on the picture to go to a larger view, where you can click on the individual apps and try them or buy them. Eight of these apps are free, by the way.

Here's John Coltrane performing "My Favorite Things." Enjoy.

Christian Boyce on the Radio

It's Springtime, and a young man's thoughts naturally turn to Macworld/iWorld in San Francisco. The show starts Thursday, and I'll be there, keeping my streak alive (I've never missed). On Saturday I'll tell you all about it via the miracle of radio. All you have to do is tell Siri to remind you to listen to the Digital Village radio program on KPFK, 90.7 FM in Los Angeles, at 10 AM this Saturday. If you want to listen over the internet using your Mac here's a link to KPFK's site. The "Listen Live" button is near the top. (Note: if you tune in at 10 AM expecting to hear me, and you hear Dr. Eric C. Leuthardt instead, there's no mistake. I come on in the second half of the show, probably close to 10:30 AM.)

If you'd rather listen on your iPhone or iPad get the tunein radio app. Here's a link to the tunein iPhone app and here's a link to the tunein iPad app.

If, for some reason, you want to hear my talk from last year, click here and enjoy on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad.

BONUS: Here's a link to some interesting Macworld/iWorld historical background information. Fun stuff.

Option Key tip #5: Rotate the Other Way

You took this photo...

and now you want to rotate it so the label is readable, right-side up.. If you're using iPhoto, the Rotate Button looks like this:

If you click that button three times the picture rotates, in 90 degree steps, to the proper position. Yay. But, if you press the Option key, the Rotate Button changes to rotate the other way, so you can turn your sausage right-side-up in a single "Option-click."

It doesn't sound like such a big deal to save two clicks, but all those clicks add up. Ask someone with carpal tunnel syndrome.

This "Option-click" technique works in iPhoto, Preview, iWeb, and probably a bunch of others. It is worth experimenting. The nice thing is, the button's picture changes to show it's going to rotate things the other way when you hold Option.

Here's the properly-rotated picture, done with a single Option-click. Tasty stuff.

And that's five.

iOS 7.1 Update: Get It

Apple continues to refine iOS 7. The 7.1 update is the latest and in my experience it's something you ought to install. The easy way to do it is through the air. Make sure your iPhone or iPad is plugged in and charging before starting, just to be safe. Then Settings, General, and Software Update.

The harder way is to connect your iPhone (or iPad) to your computer with the USB cable and do the update via iTunes. Actually, it's not really "harder" but it does take a lot longer. That's because doing it via iTunes backs up your iPhone (or iPad), then erases your iPhone (or iPad), then installs 7.1 "cleanly," and then, finally, restores your stuff from the backup. The biggest advantage of doing it with the cable is it works on iPhones and iPads that are close to full. If you've tried doing the update through the air and received a "not enough room" message, try doing it via the cable.

Of course the real question is, why do it at all? There are several improvements-- some small, some not so small-- that add up to a really nice update. Here's what I like:

1. A new option to show "Button Shapes" helps you identify buttons more easily (by making them look different than "headings"). Settings, General, Accessibility, Button Shapes. Check out this before and after:


Even the highlighting is better. Check out the lower left corner.

2. Calendar has a List View now. In iOS 6 the calendar had a list view but it disappeared in iOS 7. You could bring it back in iOS 7 by tapping the Search button but that wasn't obvious at all. Now all you do is tap on the day you want your list to start on. See below:


3. My favorite improvement: everything is faster. This is great news for iPhone 4 users and iPad 2 users, many of whom found iOS 7.0 unpleasantly slow and unresponsive.

4. The Touch ID finger print sensor works better.

5. Siri has a new way of knowing when you're done talking. Used to be, you'd press the Home button until the iPhone (or iPad) beeped twice, then you'd say something, then you'd wait for Siri to figure out you were done. In iOS 7.1, you can still do it the old way-- but now there's a new way. Press and hold the Home button, wait for the two beeps, say your stuff (still holding down the Home button), and finally let go of the Home button when you're done talking. Try this once and you'll never go back to the old way.

6. There are lots of new little animations that give feedback that you've tapped something (they also give the impression that Apple hasn't quite decided how they want the iOS interface to look and behave). For example, moving an email to a folder shows a tiny email message flying into a folder. Answering a phone call makes the green handset icon roll over and become the red off-the-hook icon. You'll find a lot of these things if you look hard-- they're out there, but they're all fairly subtle.

In Conclusion

If you're already using 7.0, the 7.1 update is a no-brainer. Do it right away. New features, refined features, and better performance await.

Option Key tip #4: Address Book Groups

You probably know that Apple's Address Book lets you create "Groups" of people, and you might also know that a given person can be in multiple groups. For example, you might have a Family group, a Soccer Team group, and a Christmas Card group, and your brother might be in all three of them. That's pretty neat, but unless you have an incredible memory there's no way you're going to remember which groups your brother is in. And there's no indication in the Address Book that a given person is in any group at all, let alone an indication of which one(s).

Unless of course you hold down the Option key. Of course.

In the picture below I've found a person's card, clicked on it in the "Name" column, and then held down the Option key. That produces the yellow highlighting, letting me know in an instant that Mom is in the "Mass email list" group, the "test group" group, and the "California" group. Let's face it, that's pretty cool.


And that's four.

Option Key tip #3: Close All Finder Windows

Our Option Key Super-Tip marathon continues with Tip #3.

Here's the situation: you have a mess of Finder windows open, like so--

Now you want to close them. So you either go to the File menu and choose "Close Window" or you click the red button at the top left of the first window... and then you do it again... and again... zzz.

If you really want to close them all hold the Option key when you go to the File menu and you can do it in one shot. See below.

(on the left: the regular File menu. On the right: how it looks when you hold the Option key.)

Bonus: if you hold the Option key and click ANY Finder window's red close button you will close ALL Finder windows. Very nice.
Double Bonus: this Option key technique works isn't specific to the Finder. It also works in Safari, Mail, Microsoft Word (but only if you use the Option-click-the-red-button method-- the Option-click-File/Close method does not work), and Microsoft Excel (same restriction as for Word).

That's three.