Mastering the Keypad

One of the biggest changes that users are experiencing with Lion is how much you can do with the Trackpad, whether it’s the built-in trackpad on your laptop or the stand alone bluetooth Magic Trackpad that you can purchase for $69.00 from Apple.
Even with Snow Leopard, the trackpad can be set to do all kinds of things, from rotating photos to enlarging text.

To customize the Trackpad:

1. Under the Apple menu choose System Preferences

2. Click on the Trackpad icon

Depending on the age of the computer you’re using, you’ll see a variety of options. On newer Macs you’ll also see video demonstrations of each of the option.

For a complete description of all of the Trackpad options, click on the question mark in the bottom right corner of the Trackpad window.

It takes a little practice to learn where to click and how many fingers to use, but if you try one new technique at a time, you’ll soon be a trackpad master.

 

iPAD and iPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

Be Sure to Update

Even if you do all of your syncing with MobileMe, it’s important to connect your iPhone and iPad to your Mac regularly so that it can check for updates.

You always want to update to the latest versions of the software so that you can take advantage of all of the newest features. Mark it on your calendar to update once a month.

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Before Upgrading to Lion:

Apple released Lion today, the newest version of the Mac OS. But before you rush to upgrade, you’ll want to be sure that you have what you need, and that everything you use will still run with the new OS.

Lion requires an Intel Core 2 Duo processor
and recommended 4 GB RAM

You can check your system by clicking on the Apple menu in the top left corner and choosing About This Mac.

There are several popular programs that will no longer work once you upgrade, including Quicken, Appleworks, Microsoft Office X and many older games.

Click here for a great article that offers the essential steps before upgrading, including backing up and checking to see what applications you have that will no longer work.

If you’re not sure, or not ready, hold off on upgrading to Lion. But do upgrade to 10.6.8, the latest version of Snow Leopard.

If you have any questions, or need help, send me an email!

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Searching in mail

If you have a lot of emails in your Inbox, it can be pretty tedious to scroll up and down, looking for a particular email.

In the top right corner there is a search box. Type in what you are looking for. (If you don’t see it, make your window wider.)

Now, just below the icons of the toolbar, you’ll also see that you can limit the search criteria: where you are searching, and whether you are looking for that text in the Entire Message, From, To or Subject.

 

iPAD and iPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

Numbers and Punctuation

If you press the 123 key, the keyboard layout switches to numbers and punctuation. Then you have to press ABC again to get back to the letter keyboard.

Shortcut:

Tap and HOLD the 123 key and slide to the number you need. When you release, the keyboard will automatically switch back to the letters.

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A Great Way to Use Mobile Me

My favorite feature about MobileMe is that I can save important emails on the cloud and am able to access them from my computer, my laptop, my phone AND my iPad, and even from someone else’s computer via the web. I find this especially helpful when I am traveling–all of my flight information, reservation confirmations and other important stuff is with me.

To set this up:

1. In Mail, click the plus sign at the bottom of the left column that shows all of your Mailboxes.

2. Chose to create a New Mailbox.

3. Title it (ie. TRAVEL)

4. Next to Location, choose ME.COM (or Mac.com if you’ve had the account for a while)

5. Now, drag any important travel emails into this Mailbox and those emails will be on every other device that has your MobileMe account set up.

iPAD and iPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

Mobile me Mailboxes

See the above tip to set up Mailboxes in Mail that you can access from your iPhone or iPad.

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Changing Dates in iCal

iCal has so many great features that make it easy to schedule appointments, celebrations, meetings and more. It’s easy to color-code each entry, set it to be a recurring event every week, every month or on a customized schedule. You can even set an alarm to remind you ahead of time.

Sometimes, you’ll have an event set for a particular day but then the day is changed.

Instead of clicking on the Event, clicking Edit and changing the information, just drag it to the new date.

To duplicate an event, hold down the Option key and drag the event to the new date.

iPAD and iPHONE TIP OF THE WEEK

All About Sounds

You can control what sounds play when different things happen. Maybe you don’t like the sound when you unlock your device. Maybe you prefer NOT to hear a sound every time you receive or send an email or when someone sends you a text or leaves a voicemail.

It’s easy to choose which sounds and alerts you want to hear.

1. Click on Settings.

2. Click on Sounds.

3. Scroll through the list, choosing which you want on and which you want off.

This is also where you can choose a different ringtone and make the Vibrate feature silent.