Want a Different Start Page?

Want a start page that's different and handy to use?  Jim Hamm thinks you might.  Get background on modifying your start page and other tips and tricks here.  "Was interesting to click a few to just see what it was all about,"Jim explains.  What impressed me the most was viewing the archive which is up to date to "17.02.12" and reading that the writer is a 21 year old guy who's started blogging early in 2007.

New Approach to Introducing New OS

        An impressive one-on-one briefing given to John Gruber, of Daring Fireball, on Thursday by three top Apple men deserves special mention.  Jim Hamm sends us this article concerning Mountain Lion.  (If reading white print on dark background aggravates you remember to do Control + Option + Command with the number 8 key to toggle to an easier-to-read black print on light background.)

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MIT Offers Online Course

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        Of course, the word FREE catches our attention.  Jim Hamm knows that.  He sends this article and writes, "Here's an interesting concept being offered by MIT: a free online course. MIT acknowledges it can only accept and teach a very small amount of people that would like to attend there. This is a way to broaden MIT's exposure and expertise to the world. Will be interesting to see how this concept works out."
        Massachusetts Institute of Technology announces its first FREE course which begins March 5 and runs through June 8; see the interesting details.

iBook Update

        Here's the latest from Jim Hamm on the subject of iBook.  "One major advantage, in theory, of an ebook over a printed book is the ability to do updates electronically. Imagine how handy, and cost effective, this would be for text books for schools or on-the-job training manuals. Here's one writer's comments on his experience of updating a book he recently purchased from iBookstore.  
        "(A side note: the Scottsdale Library just notified me this same book is ready for me to pick up and read today. I'm looking forward to reading it). One responder to this article mentions an item I hadn't considered: how does one know which part, or parts, of the book has been changed?
        "What if, say, you have a big medical textbook and a notice comes out there are important changes to the book. How does one know where they are? Do you have to scan the whole book? Nah, that doesn't make sense. Do changes come out in red or bold or italicised?  An intriguing question, and one that surely has been addressed. I just haven't read about it yet."

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Mountain Lion Drops X11

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        "Apple is encouraging users to install and use XQuartz instead of X11," according to John Carter.  He continues, "In fact, X11 is not included in Mountain Lion. This article explains.
        "XQuartz is a community-supported version of the X11 windowing system for Mac OS-X 10.6.3 or later. Please visit http://xquartz.macosforge.org for more information.
        "I have been using XQuartz instead of X11 in Snow Leopard and Lion for some time. However, I am unable to delete X11 (even on Lion) because it claims to be required by the OS; it seems apparent that they are sharing some of the same files. Having both installed has not been a problem. I don’t know if X11 will be automatically deleted when I upgrade to Mountain Lion.
        "For anyone using GIMP, they must have either X11 or XQuartz installed. When XQuartz is running, the menu name is still X11, so unless you look for the version info you won’t know which one is running. Both X11 and XQuartz may be running at the same time, but launching one will not launch the other.
        Here’s what XQuartz looks like in the Dock:

And here’s what X11 looks like in the Dock:

It is not necessary to run Xquartz (or X11) all the time, but once it is launched (it will launch automatically when GIMP is launched), it stays running until you manually quit X11.

When launching either X11 or XQuartz, a terminal window will also launch, but this terminal is an X11 version of Terminal.

Here’s the title bar for the X11 terminal window:

And here’s the title bar for the Terminal window:  


If you have an X11 terminal window open, you really don’t need to also launch Terminal.
        John's closing words, "You can close the X11 terminal window if you don’t want to see it, but you should not close XQuartz (or X11) if you have GIMP or some other application open that requires X11. When launching GIMP, the X11 terminal window will also open. Closing the X11 terminal window will not close GIMP."

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Mountain Lion Makes RSS Changes in Mail

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          Changes?  Oh, yes.  Jim Hamm must be frowning as he sends us this: "Here are a couple of articles:   One and the other one, describing changes coming in Mountain Lion. I'm gonna miss the RSS feed into Mail, which I presently use quite a bit.  He quotes this part, "Look to the right, and you may notice Safari’s first major missing feature: RSS. It looks as though Really Simple Syndication was just not simple enough for Apple; the company has excised RSS entirely from Safari (and from Mail as well), leaving feed-parsing to external applications such as NetNewsWire or Reeder. If you have such a program installed and attempt to type in or click on a 'feed://' address, Safari will automatically punt you to your respective program;
otherwise, it displays an error."
        Jim has two comments,  "Darn! I liked having the RSS feed available in Mail. This is 'progress'?" However, he goes on to say, "A new feature in Mail is the ability to designate an email from a particular sender--such as 'Moi'--as a VIP...(grin)."

iPhone 4 Settlement Announced

        Jim Hamm informs us about the settlement, explaining "You might want to bookmark this site for future reference: www.iPhone4Settlement.com. It's not active yet, but later on it appears you will be able to get $15, or a bumper case, if you bought an iPhone 4. This will cost Apple a pretty penny, I suspect."
        He sends this link to MacDailyNews, also read about it here.

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Mountain Lion Due Out This Summer

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        Today's news from CNET:  Apple will release the Mountain Lion this summer.  This article gives links to related stories and includes 11 screenshots of Mountain Lion developer previews.
        Here Jim Hamm jumps in, "Check out this article I saw in USA TODAY's iPad application.  Apple unveils new Mac OS X Mountain Lion.  To view the story click the link or paste it into your browser.  To learn more about USA TODAY for iPad and download, visit here."
        And here's more!  Jim says, "Here are a couple of more articles (one, two) that really explain what's coming in OS X Mountain Lion. After reading these I'm more impressed with the new OS. The first article points out a strategy that Apple is taking that is really smart, I think. If, say, a person buys any Apple device (a computer, iPhone, whatever) the OS is becoming similar on all Apple devices so the learning curve is shortened on how to use each device.  People like familiarity.
        Jim summarizes, "Apple is hoping that if, say, you own a Mac you'll be more likely to buy an iPhone rather than an Android device. Or vice versus. This way you don't have to learn a new operating system. With iCloud now keeping all Apple devices coordinated together, one can switch between devices and hardly miss a beat."
        However, there's a serious side to this.  Prez Art Gorski tells us, "OK, so you dodged the bullet this year and found that your 4 year old Mac could be upgraded to Lion. Now Apple has announced the next version of OS X (and they've changed the name from Mac OS X!), Mountain Lion. And guess what, many 4 year old Macs will not be able to install it." Read about it here. 
        "Ooooooh!  What about my computer?" you may be asking.  Look at http://www.appleserialnumberinfo.com/Desktop/index.php  so you can enter your computer's serial number and get a handy page to print out with lots of info on your model, including the $ value of it today.

Speculation on iPad 3

        From Jim Hamm, "Here's more speculation on the next iPad. There's not many areas in the U.S. that have LTE coverage yet, but eventually it will spread and the next iPad is said to be able to connect to it. The download speed of LTE is about 7 times faster than 3G. So, if you're pleased with 3G speed now (I am), you are really gonna be happy with LTE. Prescott finally got 3G coverage from AT&T about a month or so ago. About time, too. Verizon has had 3G for a long time.
        "Smart move by Apple, if it happens. As LTE spreads across the U.S. many people who presently own an iPad 1 or 2 will get the hots to purchase the iPad 3. I know someone, and it ain't me. However, when LTE comes to the Valley area I, ahem, might have to reconsider...(grin)..."
         And here Jim renders his closing words (for now),  "If the next IPad supports LTE, then I suspect the next iPhone release will too. And so the cycle continues, and Apple's bank account gets bigger and mine gets smaller...(grin)....."

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How to Display Images

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        Have you ever had anyone tell you this: “Hey! The picture you sent me doesn’t show up in my mail!” They could be using Thunderbird. John Carter offers this solution:  "Direct them to this link and it will tell them how to configure Thunderbird to display images.
        "However, it could be that what you did was take a screenshot (saved to the clipboard instead of to the Finder) and pasted it into your e-mail from the clipboard.
        'I have been in the habit of taking screenshots on my Mac using Shift-Command-Ctrl-4. This saves that selection to the clipboard. Then I paste the contents of the clipboard into an e-mail message.
        John explains, "When taking a screenshot, what gets saved to the clipboard is a PNG formatted image (the default format), and that shouldn’t be a problem, but what gets pasted into the email message is a TIFF formatted image. Isn’t that nice! Thunderbird will not display a TIFF image! So when I do that, anyone using Thunderbird (my wife, when she is using her Linux PC) won’t see the image. There may be other mail apps that won’t display TIFF images. Mac Mail will.
        "Mozilla’s explanation for not displaying TIFF images in Thunderbird is that TIFF is the only image format that gets transmitted as one large packet. All other image formats get broken up into smaller packets. Mozilla chooses not to waste time collecting such large packets.
        "There is a preference that can be set that tells OS X (any version) to collect screenshots as JPG instead of the default PNG (see this), but even though that is done, when you paste a screenshot image from the clipboard into Mac Mail it always converts the image format to TIFF. And this only applies to clipboard images taken with screenshots. Other clipboard images, like when you copy a file to the clipboard, are not so affected.
        Ready for John's how-to!  "So here’s the easiest way to include a screenshot in an e-mail:
1. Take the screenshot using Command-Shift-4. This saves the image to the Desktop in JPG format (the default).
2. Use one of the following three ways to get the image into the message:
a. Copy (Cmd-C) the file, then paste (Cmd-V) the image into the message body
b. Drag the file into the message body
c. Click on the paperclip icon in the Toolbar and select the file.
        "And remember, don’t include a TIFF image in an e-mail message. Any other image format is okay."
        And here's John's final touch:  "From a Mac point of view, the best solution would be to not reformat a clipboard screenshot into a TIFF when pasting into an e-mail message."

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Digital Books vs. Traditional Books

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        Printed books have a growing competitor in ePub or digital books.  Helping us keep informed about this we hear from Jim Hamm.  He asks, "Want to download and read a book on your Mac? The TidBITS Newsletter brings forth an ePub reader for the Mac. Here's two articles that offer more info on this."  This one is from Macworld. 
       Here's a video talking about the publishing of e-books, as compared to traditional books.  Jim comments,"I found it interesting to hear how the two models compare, particularly from the perspective of authors."  

Lion Update to 10.7.3

        Got Lion?  You'll want to read Jim Hamm's experience with the latest update.  "If you're running Lion and plan to do the update, be aware that when clicking software update you may automatically get the Combo Updater (CU) instead of a regular update — at least that's what I think happened to me. The CU measured 1.32GB, which is a big download, and much bigger than what I would think a 'regular' software update would be. It took me one hour to do the update, and I've got a high-speed Internet connection.
        "The CU is what various blogs are recommending as the way to do the update and avoid problems that some people are experiencing with this particular update. My update turned out fine and I'm running with no problems," Jim concludes.

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How to Find Your Answer

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        Compliments are due to our webmaster John Carter who also teaches those free SIGs.  (What a lot of spare time he has, you must be thinking.)  But today John informs us that he's had an "awakening"  —there are a lot of answers we can find for ourselves on Google!
        Doing a Google search is something we each learn by trial and error.  But John's examples can help us get the picture.  He sends the following:
Q: How are you sending screen shots in your mac?
Google search: mac screen capture
Tip: Taking Screenshots in Mac OS X - Mac Guides

Q: I’m having trouble understanding the Mac file system.
Google search: mac file system
Tip: Mac OS X File Systems (don’t go here unless you want to be tortured with geek stuff)

But I’m sure you meant how to navigate through the directory structure.
Google search: mac directory structure
Tip: Mac OS X Directory Structure explained
        So, next time you see John give him an understanding nod.  He is a patient guy, but he does want us to learn!

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5 Ways to Use an iPad for Photography

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It boils down to this:
   1. Editing On-the-Go
   2. Client Viewing
   3. Accepting Payments
   4. Handy Tools
   5. Marketing
   
 Here’s the full article at DigitalPhotographSchool
"5 Ways for Photographers to use an iPad to Jumpstart their Business."
        "You’ve been waiting for a good reason, now go out and buy an iPad!" John Carter exclaims.
        "By the way, the iPad camera connection kit (shown in the lower right corner of the image above) contains two adapters. One lets you connect a mini-USB cable directly to the iPad from the camera and the other lets you insert an SD card directly to the iPad. This is a very handy kit to have even for your iPhone 4 or iPod Touch. And of course you’ll also want the HDMI connector to connect your HD video camera directly to the iPad (or iPhone 4 or iPod Touch) or to connect your iPad (or iPhone 4 or iPod Touch) directly to your HD TV.
        "With so many connectors to do so many things with, let’s hope that Apple comes out with an iPad that has the ports built in so you won’t need all those gadgets."