Benefits of Multiple Mail Accounts

"If you have several email accounts, and use Apple Mail as your main application, you can set up multiple account names," De Prez Allen Laudenslager reminds us.

The Apple instructions are right here for you.

"What this means is that when you send a new email, you can select from any of your accounts and the mail will be sent with that as the visible address and not from your 'primary' address.

"For example, suppose you had an account named xxx@mac.com as your primary but also had an xyz@gmail.com. With this system from Apple mail, you can send your message from either your .mac or .gmail account directly from your mail application!

"Cool, huh?"  Yes, Allen, and thanks for keeping us informed and inspired!

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Backing Up to Your External Hard Drive

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Save yourself some grief; De Prez Allen Laudenslager will walk us through getting ready to back up to an external hard drive.  This is a must!
He introduces the subject, "Because of the complexity I will be doing it in two installments. This is the first and is mostly about how to format the drive when you first get it home so it will work with your Mac."



"Many of you will remember my hard drive failure way back in May of 2009. I was relying on my Mobile Me account with Apple to keep my back ups. Imagine my surprise when the backups clear back to February of that year were corrupt!

"I can’t begin to tell you how much stuff I lost because Mobile Me didn’t have any way to tell me that the backups were corrupted. I’ve been putting off buying an external hard drive and backing up to several DVDs once or twice a month for the last 2 months.

"I just got a new external drive as a birthday present and now I’ll be backing up using Super Duper AND time machine. This will automate the process and provide a lot more security.

"So, now I’ve convinced you to buy that backup drive for between $60 and $150 there is one important thing you need to do as soon as you get it home.

"Format the drive.

"Almost any drive you buy will be formatted for Windows and that is incompatible with OS X. Just connect the drive, go to Finder Applications and scroll down to Utilities. Once you open Utilities, look for and open Disk Utilities. The process is the same in Tiger, Leopard, and Snow Leopard.

"In the top left hand column, you’ll see the computer’s internal drive listed first, followed by your brand new external drive. Highlight the external drive and the right hand column will give you the options to format the drive to work with your Mac. Select partition and then rename the drive.

"Why rename? To make it obvious which drive you are selecting a few weeks from now when you’ve forgotten the details of the process. There is, also, always the chance that you will have so much stuff that you will be connecting more than one external drive. Seem unlikely? I remember my first hard drive, 20 megabytes. Yes, that’s right, meg, not gig. If you have lots of photos, you may very well need several drives depending on the sizes you buy.

"I recommend setting the drive up as one big partition and then creating folders if you need to organize further. Next, select Mac format, extended journal. Then click apply. The process will take several minutes but once done, the external drive will show up in finder and you can transfer files just like any folder on your computer.

"In the next installment, I’ll explain why I am using both Super Duper and Time Machine to back up my files and how to set up to use either or both."

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Free How-To Guides

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Here are 15 free guides available for download, or you can read them online. Jim Hamm sends us a link to makeuseof.com  and goes on to say, "I'll start out by reading the following three guides:
The Incredible Free Manual for Every Mac User; The Underground Guide to the iPhone; The Big Book of iTunes. I'm going to post a note of appreciation and subscribe to their newsletter for their handy tips."

How to Do Screenshots

Here are helpful tips on screenshots from Small Dog Electronics Tech Tails # 694, sent to us from Jim Hamm. He explains, "I've used these tips quite often to take a screenshot of something, but one tip that I wasn't aware of was adding the control key to place the image on your clipboard instead of on your desktop. This makes it handy to quickly paste the screenshot onto something else. The downside of this is a PNG image is large. I usually take the PNG image and convert it to a JPEG before using it--a drastic reduction in the size of the image."

Shopping Reviews

An interesting site to browse when you're shopping, says Jim Hamm.  He goes on to elaborate, "For example, I looked at USB Flash Drives and the article listed a review of the top four drives based on other reviews. If I wanted more info about each of them I could go to three more sites that did an in-depth review. Of the top two, if I wanted to use them on my Mac I'd have to download software first. Something good to know beforehand. Of course, Amazon publishes reviews on products as well. But this site gives yet another perspective.  Interesting and helpful site." ....Jim

Pictures Around Prescott

Have you discovered Granny J and her Walking Prescott blog? She takes pictures, and pictures, and pictures! De Prez Allen Laudenslager alerted us to her blog, and I wrote to ask if she uses Mac. Her reply, "Yes, I produce my blog on a Mac with a lovely HUGE screen running OS X 10.5.8," and "No, I don't belong to any local photography group. BTW, of the local bloggers that I know they're all Mac users." She gives us these links to local bloggers Foolswoode, Dagny's Desk, and Airstream Chronicles.

Now, adding to our info comes this from Jim Hamm this morning.  And De Prez has lined up one of Granny's friends to speak to PMUG.

Jim adds, "As I read Granny J's blog--and viewed her many pictures--I found that she is 80+ years young and has a way with words. And takes darn good pictures, too. Then, there's three other blogs to take a look at, as well. People like to express their thoughts--a creative talent urging to get out, I suppose--and a blog is one good way to do it.

"When viewing the 'Airstream Chronicles' blog take a look at the 'Image Galleries' then click 'Prescott' in the drop-down box for some images of Whiskey Row early in the morning, and of the Courthouse all lit up for Christmas.

"Each blog has its own distinctive style and means of expression. As time permits, browse around a bit."...Jim

And this morning, De Prez announces, "I asked Jenny if she would like to speak, but she begged off since she feels she only uses the simple stuff. I told her that many of our members would like to hear about that since many would be encouraged to try those simple solutions themselves.

"She referred me to the blog Airstream Chronicles, also local, and the author, Rich Charpentier,  agreed to speak at the February meeting. More details later."

On the Phone

Computing seems to be shifting more and more to mobile devices. This observation from De Prez Allen Laudenslager accompanies a link to Wired.com. The article compares Windows Mobile (on mobile phones) to Apple OS X and the chart shows that more phones now run OS X than Windows Mobile. Blackberry still outsells any of the others, but with the release of Android, Windows Mobile is losing ground fast.  And, speaking of the latest tech wonders . . .

How about that new word "vaporware" in the Wired info on Popular Science publishers, and the dorky product for fliers pictured here.  Hard to flip past some of this info, isn't it!

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Watch for Google Goggles Info

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Are you reading about "Google Goggles"?   It's a photo-based search in real-time.  This PCWorld article describes its features.  This article from the UK points out serious privacy concerns. Barbara Krasnoff, Computerworld points out, "So what's scary? The day when you can quickly point your smartphone at a person in the street and know within seconds that person's name and particulars may not be that far off."

Adobe Update

     A notice of advisory and recommended update for Adobe Flash Player was forwarded to us by Jim Hamm.  He says,  "To check which version you're running click the 'About Flash Player' link and it will show you which version you've got. Odds are it's the vulnerable version. To download the newest version click the 'Flash Player Download Center,'  then install the download."
     Now, Art Gorski and David Passell jump in with some important additions to this discussion.
Art passes along this warning: "Adobe has confirmed a critical vulnerability in Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.2 and earlier versions that could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system. There are reports that this vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild. Yet another reason to use Apple's Preview instead. Note that many Adobe installers (Photoshop, etc.) will install Adobe Reader whether you want it or not."

Now David tells of his experience with the Flash Player security update:  "Thanks to Jim for the posting regarding Flash Player security, but statement in the blog "click the 'About Flash Player' link (blue) is misleading.

"When you click on that link you are taken to the Adobe Security Page. At first glance it is a lot of verbage and overchoice without clear guidelines. You have to go down into the second paragraph or so to find:

"Affected software versions:
Adobe Flash Player 10.0.32.18 and earlier versions
 Adobe AIR 1.5.2 and earlier versions
To verify the Adobe Flash Player version number installed on your system, access the About Flash Player page, or right-click on content running in Flash Player and select 'About Adobe (or Macromedia) Flash Player' from the menu.  If you use multiple browsers, perform the check for each browser you have installed on your system.

"When you click on above link then you find out what you have.

"In my case when I first went to the page I didn't see that, but the Firefox browser popped up with an update to 3.5.6 which I installed. The Firefox description did not immediately tell me what had changed. If I wanted to dig around I might find that Flashplayer was updated.

"In any case I went back to the Adobe page mentioned in the link in the Blog posting, and then clicked on the 'About Flash Player page.'  I found that I had the secure version.

And David adds, "(Somewhere in the second go-around I got the message 'software update installed successfully' or words to that affect (poor short-term memory).:)"

Keeping Up With Apple

It's so easy to get the very latest Apple news, whether it's this new article about the University of Washington and their proprietary iPhone app — or the Quad-Core iMac — or the Nuru non-profit organization which uses MacPro and MacBookPro computers, iPhone, Final Cut Studio, iChat, and Mobile Me.  Just go to Apple here  and find at the right side of the sidebar  Actions: > Subscribe in Mail.  You'll be notified on your Mail page when there's an entry, giving you the headline and four lines of the article. Click to read more.

Address Book Privacy

Keeping up to date on the latest in security and privacy, we hear from John Carter. We had asked if putting Google or Yahoo or MobileMe to link to Address Book could in any way be something to avoid.
Here's his take on that.  .

 "If you frequently switch between Mac Mail and something like Google Mail or Yahoo Mail when you are away from home and you also frequently update your address book on one or the other, then synchronizing your address book across these platforms could make life a little easier for you.

"If you have a cell phone that you always carry with you, you could also keep your contact list updated between Mac Address Book and the cell phone Contact list and rely on your cell phone Contact list when you are not at home, which is what I try to do."

What's the Apple News?

This morning’s Google News sends us scurrying for more information. Stories on the Fall 09 iMac 27 inch computer problems and delays brought us to this report at AppleInsider. Two other headlines jumped out: “Tablet rumors: February production start, 10-inch LCD screen” and “Apple offers free taste of iTunes LP format with ‘Holiday Sampler.” In red headlines, “Black Friday Deals Extended" takes us to a price comparison chart.  It's interesting to see what's up with our favorite Apple products.  And now, John Carter finds a nifty app for iPhone.  Take a look . . .

"If you’ve ever spent too much time composing an email on your iPhone’s tiny keyboard you are going to LOVE this! Dragon Dictation is an amazing, free, dictation app for your iPhone.

"Just launch the app, press the record button, and start talking. You can dictate anything from a short note to a longer soliloquy. Once the text is transcribed, you can send it as an email, text message, or copy to the clipboard. Clean up some missed words and add punctuation, and you are set!

"Link: Dragon Dictation at App Store   (Do take serious note of the complaints, however, which warn of security and privacy issues.)

"The accuracy of the speech-to-text conversion is amazing. There are typically a few errors, but they are easy to fix.

"Tip: You can add punctuation to your text by saying ‘period’, ‘question mark’, or ‘exclamation mark’ as you talk. It’s a nice touch."  (Double click to enlarge.)

Author Mode, User Mode: Blog Views

To view a browser's text and images of a blog without colors was the challenge that David Passell recently experimented with, and he reports here.

"Both Firefox and Opera have a means of displaying the text and images of a blog without colors. I couldn't find an equivalent for Safari. Only Opera, though, provides something that could be printed in black/white.

"In Opera: on bar just above the main page there is a button titled 'Author Mode.' If you click it the button changes to 'User Mode.' All the formatting disappears and all information on the blog is displayed. Even things that are hidden show up. It can be printed as displayed. I prefer to print/save as a PDF first though."

He sends a screen shot of our blog from Opera Browser "User Mode." Double click to enlarge.

He says, "I know of no equivalent feature in Safari. The Firefox view 'No Style' Option doesn't come close and is not suitable for printout.

David concludes, "In the styled (Firefox) or author (Opera) the blog looks the same as Safari. It is the No Style or User Mode that looks different."