how to

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Are You New to the Mac Computer? Mac 101

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        "Here is the start of a new series of instructions for the new Mac user," writes Jim Hamm.  
        Yesterday, (10-4) Macworld started a new series of How-To for the new Mac user.  Go there, bookmark it, and watch for that weekly posting.  That’s if you want to hear about everybody else’s problems!  You’ll have to sort that out.      
        HOWEVER,  in the Prescott area you have PMUG and you have the PMUG monthly SIGs (Special Interest Groups.)  

        Sometimes asking a smiling person at our meetings can be more helpful than reading a whole book!  You'll find people at PMUG who previously used PC, you'll find people who just got their first Mac or iPhone or iPad, you'll find people who have used Mac since 1984.  And here on this blog you'll find all sorts of help.  Scan through the Labels on the right hand side to get an idea.   
        See you on the 20?  Ginger Carlson will give you a cookie!  
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Changing the Full Screen-Size View

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         Aaaaack!  Another problem, but it turned into a “new feature” of Mountain Lion. 

        It’s in Pages and Safari; maybe other programs, too?  Looking at a Google news page on Safari I saw some little icons at the top. Pointing at one, a tiny box comes up, naming it.  Clicking on the unnamed one with two little arrows suddenly made my open page in Google expand to fill the entire screen.  There was no indication of how to go back to the previously normal-sized page.  
        Trying various keys on the keyboard: the Function 3 key brought up the Dashboard. At least I could now get to other icons in the Dock.  I tried looking up Help, without finding any help.  Perhaps I just didn’t word my search correctly?  
        In desperation, I emailed the helpful tech down at the Peoria MacMedia Inc. store.  Amazingly, I soon got a reply from Kyle Smith, sent from his iPhone.  “This is a feature of Apple, and you can do that from any program, but if you hold your cursor in the top of the screen it will drop down a menu and then you can click the blue icon that has the 2 arrows pointing towards each other.  That should fix it.” 

....................... Here's the arrows at the right side, top. 

..................Here's what happened.   
                                  

Here's the view of the blue arrows at the top.

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Problem Solving & Learning More

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        Three articles caught Jim Hamm's attention, and each deserve at least a quick look.  Even if you're not particularly interested in the topic, it might be interesting to note the links on these sites. The first two are from MakeUseOf, and it has links to How To & Tips, Cheats & Guides, Geeky Fun. The third is from the latest Macworld that shows links to What's Hot, Reviews, How-To and Creative.
        "If you were a Mobile Me user, you might have additional storage on iCloud. Take a look at this.
        "Here's an article describing the difference between the internet and the World Wide Web. For most of us, we probably don't care about the difference, we just appreciate that it all works.
        "If  you've upgraded to iOS 6 and are experiencing some problems, here's an article with some tips that might help."         

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Java Fix Doesn't Work (Updated 8-31)

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  We start out with the latest warning on Java, received at 3:20 pm Friday, 8-31.  Jim Hamm brings us up to date.  (Then read the rest of this for the background of this huge issue.)         "Now this is amazing. A few hours after Oracle issued a patch for the security flaw in Java, another exploit has been found. This has been forwarded to Oracle, but since Oracle never comments on these security breaches they didn't say anything. It doesn't appear the hackers have found this opening yet, but after they read this article, they'll probably start trying.          "Although our risk of hacking might be small, I think it's best to disable Java. I did so a long time ago and haven't missed it yet."         You saw this here on 8-27.   Here's a warning from Jim Hamm,  "If you've still got Java enabled in your browser, now's a good time to disable it. Another vulnerability with Java has surfaced. Take a read on this. In Safari, Java can be disabled in Preferences > Security > uncheck enable Java."         With another notice of a potential malware risk from Java 7 Jim sends this link.   The last paragraph in the article states, "Mac owners can disable the Java plug-in from within their browsers, or remove Java 7 from their machines. To do the latter, select 'Go to Folder' from the Finder's 'Go' menu, enter '/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/' and drag the file '1.7.0.jdk' into the Trash."         Here's a quick test to see if Java is disabled in your browser, from our eagle-eyed Jim Hamm.  He tells us,  "Just click here and if the box comes up empty, you're okay — Java is disabled."         And, Jim sends the latest:  "Here's an article describing how Oracle knew about the Java vulnerability to a malware attack since early April. And, moving right along at a snail's pace, Oracle doesn't plan a fix till October. Given Oracle's slow response to acknowledging and fixing malware attacks, it's a wonder any developer use Java at all."         We were surprised to see a fix announced here this afternoon, (Thursday, August 30).  Keep us informed on the latest and we'll pass the word along!  !           A hot topic: this just out an hour ago, (8-31)  and recommends you turn Java off or delete it.  

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Explore How Google Translates

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        Curiosity is piqued by the latest forward from Jim Hamm.  It's supposed to be how to separate a yolk from the rest of the egg, but it's in Chinese, or Japanese, or something that looks like that.  Sure enough, the site http://bbs.wenxuecity.com/cooking/1160651.html  comes up and you can see how she does it.
        But, wait!  Google translate will help.  Go to Google > More > Translate.  Paste into the first box what you copied from that URL.  Up comes the English translation.  You can click on the little icon for sound in the bottom of that first box and hear the woman read it in her language.  (You can type in text or a website address or translate a document by pasting it into the first box.)  Experiment.  And see how cleverly she separates the yolk from the rest of the egg!

Click to enlarge.

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Google's New Authentication Process

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        "Here's a MacWorld article providing further details on a new two-step authentication process available from Google," begins Jim Hamm.  He goes on, "Since I use Gmail I thought this might be a nice security feature to use. After reading the article, I'm not so sure. Seems a bit complex and convoluted. I think I'll wait for now and see if this authentication process becomes a bit simpler later on."

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RSS Feed Solutions Described

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        Mountain Lion no longer supports RSS feeds in either Mail or Safari, but John Carter to the rescue.  He offers this description and solution:   "If you are currently subscribed to either the PMUG website RSS or the Newsletter RSS, you should consider one of the many alternatives for receiving RSS feeds.

        "I use NetNewsWire, the free version. It works, but not quite the way I would like it to. When I was subscribing to RSS feeds with Mail, I could delete news that I didn't care to keep. You can't do that in NetNewsWire, at least not in the free version. 
        "NetNewsWire also automatically deletes old news. It seems the only way to hang onto a copy of any news item is to display it, copy it, and paste it into a document. But then, you can still go to the site that delivered the news feed and retrieve any material there by searching for the topic. Now the funny part of this is for me, I rarely go back and reread any news. I do at times refer to it to pass on information that others are asking about.
        "To subscribe to an RSS feed in Mountain Lion, you first have to have an RSS news reader installed on your computer. Next, open Safari and go to the website that you want to subscribe to their RSS feed. Click on the RSS icon. It opens NetNewsWire (if that's what you have installed) and pops up a dialogue box. In the dialogue box, enter a decent short title and a description (optional).
        "If you are still using Leopard, Snow Leopard, or Lion and you want to start right away with an RSS reader like NetNewsWire, open Mail -> Preferences and click on the RSS tab. There you will find an option to use Mail or an external reader. Click on the option to use an external reader, then in the Finder window that opens, find and click on the RSS reader, then click OK. Any new RSS feeds that come in will go to that reader. You can now delete the RSS feed in Mail. If you're using Safari as your RSS reader, do pretty much the same thing there in Safari Preferences.
        "If you choose to use NetNewsWire, when you click on a news item you will get the short version. To read the long version, you can either double-click on the entry or click on the title of the news feed - this appears if large blue letters just above the short version."
        (Click to enlarge the illustrations.) 
John winds up his instructions with,  "In NetNewsWire preferences you select to open the long version in NewNewsWire (in a separate tab) or in your default browser."
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Mountain Lion Upgrade Notes

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        "Well, there's more," John Carter begins.  (Of course, with  200+ features!) OK, John: you're on! 

        "The Address Book is quite a bit different. More controls to change the appearance. One control places the group list in a column on the far left next to the address list. What's still missing is a column of A-Z tabs to quickly go to a section of the address book like there is in the iPad Contacts.
        "A Reminders App, list like the one in the iPad, is now in OS 10.8. Well, not exactly like it. OS X 10.8 has a few controls that iOS 5.1 doesn't have, like displaying a small monthly calendar in the left column.
        "TextEdit also has the two new buttons (iCloud and On My Mac) in the upper left of the Open window.
        "Stickies still exists, but now there is Notes. These are the same notes that you have in the iPhone and iPad. But looks a bit different.
        "The Open window for QuickTime doesn't have the two new buttons.
        "I still prefer MPEGStreamclip over QuickTime. QuickTime still chokes on .wmv files that MPEGStreamclip has no problem with. And the latest Flip4Mac release didn't help QuickTime at all – because it wouldn't install. With great difficulty I ejected the Flip4Mac installer and then had to restart my computer to get Mail to work again. Clue: don't install the 3.0 Beta for Flip4Mac."
        No sooner had John signed off, "No time for more. I'll continue this at a later time" – than he thought of more!
        "News flash!
        "X11 is not included with Mountain Lion. If you had X11 installed for use with Crossover, Crossover will not run. Attempting to run X11 forces you to an Apple website informing you that X11 is no longer supported.
        "Apple is now using XQuartz instead of X11, but XQuartz will not work with Crossover.
        "Crossover is not yet available for Mountain Lion. So, if you depend on a Windows application running under Crossover, do not upgrade to Mountain Lion until Codeweavers has created a Mountain Lion update.
        "If you have other apps that depend on X11, check to see if it has a Mountain Lion compatible version."  And with this John does sign off — for now. 
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Lessons Learned? OK!

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        "This is sort of related to 'Learning about the Mac'" begins Allen Laudenslager.  (Who?  when? you ask. Yes, Allen, a PMUG's Previous Prez, and his wife are back. And here's the latest lesson learned.) 

        "After Jeff Ian's great presentation on printers, I rushed right over to Best Buy and picked up that $59.95 Brother all in one printer before the sale ended. In attempting to connect it to my home Wifi network I had the following problems.
       "First, I was able to set it up with my home network from the printer panel front with no problems, second I was able to connect my Macbook to the printer with no problems. I kind of expected that cause the Mac is great! The problems started when I tried to connect my wife's Windows 7 laptop to the printer.
        "The instructions 'presume'  that you are connecting the printer for the first time and there was no reference that I could find in the set up guide to attaching the printer to a second computer. Like the dummy I am, I followed the instructions and the Windows laptop wouldn't print. No big surprise there, the big surprise was that my Macbook stopped printing too!
        "Tried to contact Brother and it seems that they only support the product during regular business hours Monday through Friday. I guess most of their customers don't try to install their products on the weekends or evenings. I did try their email support but gave up after receiving a set of Windows setup instructions to fix the 'can't print from a OS X 10 Macbook' help request.
        "Finally gave up after three hours Saturday and just waited till business hours Monday to call the Brother help desk.
        "First thing was that the Windows instructions told me to use a static IP address, and I should have used the dynamic IP address setting. Once I reset that to the factory default my Macbook started printing again. The Windows 7 problem was a 'printer busy' error and turned out to be a really unusually issue.
        "First a little background — we are staying in a friend's guest house till we find a permanent place following our return from Denver two weeks ago. Second, our hosts have another Wifi network for their computers. When I set up mine, I just connected to their DSL modem router and went back to work.
        "My wife came back earlier than I did and had logged her laptop into our host's network and didn't change the log in to our network after I set it up here!
        "Logged into the correct Wifi network with her laptop, and lo and behold, I could find the printer and get it to work correctly."
         Here Allen explains with a smile, "Lesson learned. A little embarrassing to share with all the computer experts in PMUG, but I finally decided that I'd rather spread the word and put up with the pointing and laughing."
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Upgrading to Mountain Lion?

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        Getting ready for Mountain Lion, Jim Hamm shares some helpful advice, "If you plan to upgrade to Mountain Lion, the TidBITS newsletter is offering two books for a discounted price of $10 each until Mountain Lion is released. At that time the book price increases to $15 each. You can read more about the offer in the following link.
        Jim follows up with "If you're planning to upgrade to Mountain Lion later this month, here is a Macworld article with preparatory steps to take before 'roaring' off to that new OS."

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Mac Dictionary Will Speak to You

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        It started with reading a news article about the horrible flesh-eating disease.  Wondering how much info the Mac Dictionary would give I looked up that long word "necrotizing fasciitis" and my curiosity just got started.  Would Dictionary read it to me?
        Yes, Mac will read aloud to you.  You can use this feature in Dictionary, Pages, Word for Mac, even news you highlight from Google, other Internet sites, and . . . get this!  You can listen to the PMUG newsblog being read aloud to you.

        Go to Apple in the menu bar across the top of the screen.  Click System preferences, under System click Speech.  On the Text to Speech tab, select the Speak selected text when the key is pressed check box.  Click Set Key, then press the combination of keys that you want to use to hear the text read aloud.  Then click OK.    I decided to use Command + S.  Now the fun of trying it out, here and there.  
        Oh, here's more about that flesh-eating disease.  Click on Dictionary, choose  Wikipedia and type in "flesh-eating disease."  Up it comes with medical explanations, photos, and links to further resources.  There's even a list of notable people who have been afflicted with it.  

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How to Upgrade to Mountain Lion -- FREE

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        Well, it's the e-book that's FREE, but that's good!  The e-book that John Carter tells about will be offered as raffle prizes at our July 14 general PMUG meeting.  Here's the info:  "Apple is poised to release OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion in July, and the people at Take Control want to help smooth your transition to Apple's next big cat. Because many of you will want to upgrade soon, Take Control is offering Joe Kissell's "Take Control of Upgrading to Mountain Lion" for sale now, with Matt Neuburg's "Take Control of Using Mountain Lion" available for pre-order as a single-page placeholder that you can use to get the full title once Mountain Lion ships."
        John sends the link to the article about it here.  The winner receives the e-book on an 8GB thumb drive.