library tech head

Getting Apple Mail 4.5 to store Drafts mailboxes at the top

gaskinno — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 14:39:20 +0000

When I switched to Apple Mail 4.5, my Draft mailboxes were not grouped at the top of the left panel along with Inbox, Sent and Trash, as I expected. Instead, I had several Drafts Mailboxes (1 for each email account), nested within each account.

Ernie at the Apple Support discussion forum to the rescue. As he explains, with an IMAP account, as mine is, it’s only necessary to click on one of the out-of-place Drafts mailboxes, click on Mailbox in the menu bar, choose Use this mailbox For, and select Drafts. Yay Apple support forums!

StuffIt Expander: open compressed or encrypted files

gaskinno — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 23:06:26 +0000

Downloaded a file with a .sit file extension? Need to open it with your Mac?

Free download of Stuffit Expander solves problem.

When you get a new computer you forget you ever had to do this in the first place!

SizeUp – place a window where you want with a keystroke

gaskinno — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 23:29:50 +0000

As a former Windows user, one thing I missed on the Mac OS was a true maximize button.

Shareware SizeUp goes one better and lets you use easy-to-remember keyboard combinations not only to maximize a window, but place it in the top half, bottom half, right half or left half of your screen (great for comparing documents, copying and pasting presentation slides, etc.).

Here’s what MacUpdate has to say about it:

SizeUp allows you to quickly position a window to fill exactly half the screen (splitscreen), a quarter of the screen (quadrant), full screen, or centered via the menu bar or configurable system-wide shortcuts (hotkeys). Similar to “tiled windows” functionality available on other operating systems.

Additional features include moving windows from one monitor to another, from one Space to another, and restoring a window to its original size and position (SnapBack)

Append a PDF in Mac OS X

gaskinno — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 23:39:35 +0000

After an hour of searching the web unsuccessfully for free apps that would append one pdf to another, I finally found out I could do it free with Preview!

Quick summary: “To join two or more pdf files together using Preview – the standard pdf viewer in OS X – simply open a pdf in preview, open the thumbnail view, and then drag a second pdf file ON TOP OF an existing thumbnail. The two documents will merge into one. Then save the new combined file.”

Thanks, Macintosh How To! For detailed instructions and illustrations, see:

How to merge pdf files with preview in Leopard

“Firefox prevented this page from automatically reloading”

gaskinno — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:02:57 +0000

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”

My Favourite Firefox Add-ons

gaskinno — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:11:16 +0000

Already have

Multiple Tab Handler
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4838
“Duplicate Tab”, “Close All Tabs”, “Close Left Tabs”, “Close Right Tabs”, “Copy URL” and “Close Slimilar Tabs”.

Cooliris
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search?q=cooliris&cat=all
Full-Screen, 3D — Cooliris (formerly PicLens) transforms your browser into a visually stunning, lightning fast way to search, discover, view and share online photos, videos and more.

Forecastfox
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/398
Get international weather forecasts from AccuWeather.com, and display it in any toolbar or statusbar

NewTabURL
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2221
Select default URL when new tabs are opened: “Blank page”, “Home page”, “Current page” or a user defined URL.

Delicious Bookmarks
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3615/

Want to try

DownThemAll!: For you compulsive downloaders out there (who, me?), DownThemAll! is what you’ve been looking for. It’s a highly customizable download manager that lets you pause, resume, accelerate and automate your Web downloads. Best of all? It offers the option to download all the images or links on a page, saving you the trouble of endlessly right-clicking every element of a gallery or, say, a list of great Firefox add-ons.

Removing .Trashes Files from a USB Drive in Mac OS X

gaskinno — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:43:40 +0000

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.

Clear Text Formatting on OS X

gaskinno — Thu, 15 May 2008 17:09:52 +0000

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

Changing File Associations for Mac OS X

gaskinno — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:38:03 +0000

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.

Mouse – Snap to default button for Mac

gaskinno — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:50:44 +0000

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.