library tech head

Q: What settings do I need to change to avoid getting the message “Firefox prevented this page from automatically reloading” when I use particular sites, e.g. my web-based mail site?

A: This is Firefox blocking the page from doing an automatic refresh. To change it, go to Firefox > Preferences > Advanced > General, and uncheck “Warn me when websites try to redirect or reload the page”

Q. I have a USB drive that I use with my PC and my Mac. But whenever I delete something from it in OS X, it stores those files in the .Trashes folder, and makes the drive full even if it doesn’t look full in MAC OS X. So to clean it up I have to use Windows to delete the .Trashes folder. Can I do this using OS X?

A. If you delete something, then empty the trash, the .Trashes directory should be empty — if you simply leave those items in the trash, they haven’t been deleted yet and will reside inside the .Trashes folder.

I don’t think there’s a way to get rid of the .Trashes folder permanently — but you can make sure it doesn’t take up any space on the drive by fully emptying the trash.

http://lifehacker.com/software/mac-os-x/clear-text-formatting-on-os-x-127683.php

For each file type, select a file of that type and choose “Get info” from the File menu. Then in the “Open with” section, choose the desired application from the menu and click the “Change All…” button.

Here’s another Windows feature I missed on the Mac — setting up the mouse so it would snap to the default button of a dialog window to cut down on mouse movements. I found a great solution at The macosxhints Forums: a third-party app called Lazy Mouse.

Problem: I wanted to see all the buttons on the Standard and Formating toolbars in Excel without having to click the right-arrow on the right of the toolbar for “more buttons” in a drop-down. I thought (and I’m not the only one — (see http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Mac/microsoft.public.mac.office.excel/2005-04/msg00024.html and http://forum.soft32.com/mac/buttons-toolbar-ftopict82996.html), that it should simply be a matter of dragging the resize corner of the toolbar to show all buttons.

It took me half an hour to discover this fix by trial and error (no help from help, Microsoft or the web). This is true for Excel, PowerPoint and Word 2004 for Mac.

To see ALL the buttons on your toolbars all the time:

• go to the right of the toolbar and click the right-arrow to see “more buttons” in the drop-down
• for each button that appears in the drop-down, right-click and choose “Show Command” from the right-click menu; the button is now shown by default in the toolbar, rather than in the drop-down menu

I am now a Windows user adjusting to Mac life. Lots of questions. Almost as many answers. Here’s one.

To switch between open windows in the same application:

• hold down the Command key and hit ~ (the tilde key, usually to the left of number 1 or right of the shift key)

A question with no answer yet:

• I’m using a Macbook with a peripheral keyboard. Is there any way to use the “end” key to navigate to the end of a line of text when composing in Word, Mail, etc.?