Opening View Options

To open the view options, click anywhere on your desk and then either select Show View Options from the View drop menu, or use the key combination Command + J.

Changing Settings

View options allows you to change a slew of settings from Icon Size to Grid Spacing, Label Font Size and Position.  Reducing the sizes and spacing can of course allow you to fit more and more into your desktop, though if you are sffering from a chronic lack of space on your desktop you should consider using Spaces, or have a spring clean.

Tucked away at the bottom of the options windows are a couple of useful settings, Show Item Info and Show Icon Preview, personally I prefer to have these off.

The last option, Arrange By, allows you to define how the desktop reacts to files placed on it. Selecting the option Snap To Grid helps to keep your desktop arranged in an orderly fashion, though equally you can have files ordered by name, date or any other file property you desire from the available list.

Opening Finder Preferences

To bring up the Finder Preferences dialog, select Finder Preferences from the Finder drop menu.  Alternatively, use the Command + Comma key combination, as is standard for opening all preference windows for OS X applications.

Once open you will see that the preferences are split into 4 tabs: General; Labels; Sidebar and Advanced.

General Preferences

From the General Preferences tab there are 4 possible settings to play with.

Device Display

The first, to stipulate which of the following storage devices you wish to display when connected: hard disks; external disks; CDs, DVDs and iPods; and connected network servers.  Toggle these on and off by ticking the respective checkbox on and off.

Window Destination

Secondly, you can specify which destination to open any new Finder window at. by default it will open with your user home, which makes most sense, but you can of course change this to anything you like, with predefined selections as Computer, Macintosh HD, your iDisk, Home, Documents or ‘Other …’ which brings up a directory selection dialog.

New Window

Thirdly, the option to “Always open folders in a new window” which pretty much does what it says on the tin, whilst last, but not least, general settings allows you to define availability and speed of spring-loaded folders.

Spring Loaded Folders

The spring loading of folders allows you to drag and hold files or folders over a folder, and which will, after the predefined period, perform the equivalent of a double-click and hence open the folder over which the content was hovered.  This basically allows you to navigate through one or more folders without having to let go of the items you wish to drag and drop.

Label Preferences

In OSX labels are used for coloring files in the Finder.  OS X provides 7 predefined colors, with the colors defined as the label names.  Under the label preferences you can change the specific name given to any label, for example by defining the red color as Office-Related items rather than merely Red.

Sidebar Preferences

In OS X, labels are used for coloring files in the Finder.  OS X provides 7 predefined colors, with the colors defined as the label names.  Under the label preferences you can change the specific name given to any label, for example by defining the red color as Office-Related items rather than merely Red.

Advanced Preferences

The final tab of the four is the Advanced Preferences tab. This provides you with 4 settings, which you can toggle on and off with the appropriate check boxes.

File Extensions

First of all you can enable or disable file extensions. These are the last 3 or 4 letters ont he end of a filename that define what type of application file the contents of it represents. You may have heard of a .doc and know that this represents a Microsoft Word file, well of course there are thousands of these, and by toggling this option you can switch the visibility of these on or off.

The second, by default, is enabled. That is to say that any change to a file’s extensions, as mentioned in option one, will result in a warning, asking you if you would like to switch from one extension to the newly specified one.

Secure Erase

The third and fourth options revolve around the trash. Firstly, switching on or off the option for a warning prior to actually emptying the trash, and secondly to ensure that all files are securely deleted when the trash is being emptied.  By defauly files are not securely deleted, which mean they can be recovered afterwards, if they are deleted by mistake.  The other advantage of not securely deleteing files is that the action of deleting files securely slows up the process of deletion dramatically; and when you have a large number of files to dispose of, this can add a lot more time to the equation.

And so there you have it. The Finder Preferences!

So you just bought a new Mac, you have signed up for your own domain and want to setup your own email. What’s the best route to take when you are blasted with technical jargon at every turn. Let’s find out.

What First?

You have just clicked on the [+] button to add a new email account to Apple Mail, under the Accounts preferences tab, but the first choice you have to make is to select either POP or IMAP. Which one?

Well the answer lies in the requirements of the way you will interact with your email. POP itself is a protocol that allows you to download your emails and their attachments to the system you are accessing them from. IMAP on the other hand is a protocol that allows you to access and review the emails on the remote email server before downloading the emails, and or attachments in order to access the actual data contained within them.

So How Does This Affect You?

Start by asking yourself a series of questions. Firstly, Is this the only machine you will be accessing your emails on? Perhaps you will access webmail at work, or have more than one computer, one at home and one for the road. are you backing up emails at home? Does your email host provide backups? How big is your email inbox and associated folders?

These are questions you might not have answers to immediately, but I would work on the following rule of thumb:

If you have more than one computer, or you will be accessing your emails via webmail, then you should consider using IMAP. If you do, then you need to find out if you have enough space on the email server to be able to store all your emails there. If not then you need to ensure that you do good housekeeping and download and archive older emails to a designated Mac system at home, or in the office as is relevant to your needs. In addition you have access to all your sent emails, along with those organized into various folders on the server itself.

If you are only using a single, or multiple accounts on one computer, then I would consider using POP. This allows you download the emails and attachments to your computer for safe keeping. If you want, you can either remove the emails immediately from the server, after collection, or leave them there for a specified period of time, potentially indefinitely, if you have enough space and want a secondary backup of your emails.

Can You Change Around Later?

In short, yes. Nothing stops you switching from IMAP to POP and downloading your emails to your Apple Mail Inbox. And by the same token, doing the reverse and uploading large amounts of email and attachments to the server to be access via IMAP.

The Best Solution

The key to all of this is just good housekeeping and ensuring that you are aware of the state of your inbox at all times. I often find people hit problems, because they are not aware that they have a finite limit on their email inbox and it reaches that limit. They don’t react to the emails they received from their provider telling them the inbox is at 80, 90 and 100% of capacity and so the inevitable occurs.

Imagine your email inbox like your own letter box, and you can quickly see how, if you never collect the letters and junk that is stuffed in it, that it will quickly overflow. That’s why it is important to be a good email recipient and manage email properly,

Getting Started

Start by going to the Cyberduck Homepage (www.cyberduck.ch) and clicking the download link, from where the downloaded software will end up, either on your desktop or in the downloads folder, depending on your version of OS X. When prompted, select the option to “open with DiskImageMounter.app”, if in Firefox, this will mean that the file is auto-mounted and opened in the Finder when finished.

After the file has been mounted an opened, you will see a finder window. In this window there is a Cyberduck application file, with a bath tub duck for an icon. Drag and drop this item to your Applications folder. Once copied over dispense with the mounted volume image by clicking the Eject button in the sidebar of the Finder window.

Open and Connect with Cyberduck

Now find Cyberduck in the Applications folder and double-click the icon. This will launch the app and and a virgin Cyberduck window will open ready for you to make a connection to your server. At this point you should probably ensure that you have all the requisite information needed to make a successful connection to your server. If for a web server, you will have received details of the ftp server hostname, username and password from your web hosting service provider.

Once ready, click Open Connection at the top left hand corner of the blank window. This will generate a drop down dialog for you to enter the detaisl to connect. Under server put in the ftp hostname, username and pass go in their respective fields, and to memorize the details, check the box for Add to keychain. Ensure that, at the top of the drop down dialog, the select menu has the right service type selected. It defaults to FTP (File Transfer Protocol), though there are 7 other types of service that Cyberduck can handle.

There is no need to specifically set any of the items under the More Options tab, but you can predefine a file path or destination, and specify the connection mode and encoding. If in doubt, best to leave these as is. The FTP server will deposit you in the top level of the space you have on the server you are connecting to.

Once connected the experience of using the Cyberduck file window should be pretty similar if not identical to the Mac OSX Finder, thus, you should have a relatively easy time of finding your way around.

Troubleshooting FTP Connection Issues

If you find that you are having issues connecting, then doucle check the details you entered are correct. The FTP server will likely provide back an error message which might give you a clue as to the root cause of the problem. If the connection is excessively slow or times out, try toggling the between Active and Passive in Connection Mode under the More Options Tab.

Tweaking & Getting Fully Setup

Beyond your first successful connection, you may well want to investigate creating bookmarks so that you don’t have to remember your details every single time you want to login.  In addition I would check out the documentation and features listed on the Cyberduck web site and get to know your new file transfer friend a little better.  Find out more by heading to Cyberduck.ch.

For those of you hunting around and looking for stock photos that won’t break the bank then look no further, head on over to stock.xchng (www.sxc.hu).

For so long small and medium sized businesses have been robbed in daylight by such companies as Getty Images, but with the advent of the net and the choice by many to still avoid breaching copyright by simply taking images from online image searches and web sites, sites like stock.xchng and iStockPhoto are booming. Most of all they give web users cheaper photos and photographers, designers and artists a greater opportunity to reap the rewards and greater margins on the items them sell.

So don’t be a fool, and make savings where they count, i.e. your pocket. Find great photos for iWeb, Keynote, Pages, iWork and any other Apple design application.

For those of us who are a bit challenged in the color department there is a great new web site service for color schemes, samples trends and palettes. It is called COLOURlovers and describes itself as:

“…a resource that monitors and influences color trends. COLOURlovers gives the people who use color – whether for ad campaigns, product design, or even in architectural specification – a place to check out a world of color, compare color palettes, submit news and comments, and read color related articles and interviews.”

The great thing about the site is that it is more than just a place that instructs and directs, providing vital trend data, but is also a community and social hub allowing you to interact and share with others.

So if help with deciding on colors or getting pattern and design ideas is what you need then head on over to COLOURlovers.com.

Just what is that little black apple on the upper left hand corner of your screen? It must have a purpose, right? Well, it does and I’m going to tell you all about it.

If you click on the black apple one time, the apple turns a silver color and a menu will appear beneath it. The menu that appears is commonly referred to as your “Apple Menu” If someone tells you to check your “Apple Menu” then you know that they are asking you to click on your black apple if you are using OS 10.5

So- why is this Apple menu special? Let’s take a look:

About This Mac

The first item on the Apple menu is “About this Mac” If you select this choice you will be given a window that tells you which version of the Mac OS you are using. This same window offers you the opportunity to go straight to Software Update, it shows you the type of processor you have, it tells you how much RAM you have in your machine, it tells you which disk your machine is using and it gives you a button for even “more info…” Some readers may be wondering why they would ever want to know any of this information. I can explain that too. The information on the About This Mac window is very useful to help tech support (or you) troubleshoot your computer. If you call tech support because a certain application seems to be going entirely too slow the tech is likely to ask you to tell them about your processor and memory. Using the information from the About This Mac window they will be able to determine if your computer meets the application’s system requirements.

Software Update

Next on the Apple Menu list is “Software Update” When you select this option the Software Update utility opens and your mac contacts Apple to see if there are any software or firmware updates available for your mac. Your mac is set by default to automatically look for updates once per week. It is always a good idea to download the latest updates for your mac.

Mac OSX Software

The third item on the Apple Menu is “Mac OS X Software” This is my least favorite option because it’s merely a link to the Apple website’s software section. By clicking “Mac OS X Software” you can see different types of software to buy.

System Preferences

Next we have “System Preferences”. This is where you set just about everything for your mac. This article can’t begin to cover everything that happens in system preferences but there will be other articles on this blog covering system preferences.

Dock

Beneath System Preferences is the option for “Dock” This will also be covered elsewhere but for now, let it suffice to say that the dock is the little bar at the bottom of your screen. This option will allow you to edit the way it looks and behaves.

Recent Items

“Recent Items” let’s you see all of the applications that you’ve used recently as well as all of the documents you’ve opened recently and all of the servers you’ve joined.

Force Quit

The next thing we have on the Apple Menu is “Force Quit” Every now and then you will get something that all mac nerds find annoying- the “spinning beach ball of doom” Just remember that phrase, if you haven’t been unlcky enough to experience the spinning beach ball of doom, congratulations! If you have seen it before, this is what you should have tried to click to get out of the application that was freezing your mac.

Sleep, Restart & Shutdown

The “Sleep” option on the Apple Menu simply puts the computer to “sleep” This means that the computer is not turned off but it is in a very low power mode. I typically let me machine sleep if I am only planning to be away from it for a few hours or a few minutes. If you put the computer to “sleep” by clicking the Sleep option you can easily awaken it by pressing any key on your keyboard.

Sometimes you will need to restart your machine. The correct way to restart the machine is by choosing “Restart” from the Apple Menu. You may need to restart your machine if you’re having a lot of “spinning beach ball” problems.

Next we see “Shut Down” on the list. This is one of the most important choices on the list. Choosing this option is the correct way shut down, or turn off, your computer. Pressing the power button on your mac is NOT the correct way to shut it down.

Finally, Log Out

Finally, we have “Log Out” You can Log out of your user account on your mac by choosing this option in the Apple Menu. This is particularly useful if you share a computer with other people.

There you have it – the basic story on the Apple Menu in Mac Os X and it’s many functions.