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Apr 27 2009

The best parts of Panther

Now that a good bit of the Mac population has Panther, I thought it would be a good time to go over what I like most about the new OS. If you have a differing opinion, let me know.

TextEdit
Apple didn’t make a new ad campaign centered around TextEdit, but they could have. This little, “application that could”, can now read and write .docs! It also sports cool things like styles. This makes my rare grab for Word, a lot more rare.

Preview
Another one of those little upgrades. Preview can now crop, which is really handy when you just need a quick change and don’t want to fire up Photoshop. It also sports a search function for PDFs. Both very cool. Not really Preview, but the sheer speed of PDF rendering in Panther is great

Application switcher
Yes, I know it wasn’t original, but I like it. Quite handy.

Activity monitor
Again, one of these quite updates. One of the things that bugged me about X was that you could never really tell how much RAM applications were taking up without some weird Terminal tricks or freeware. Is it some sort of secret? Come on Apple.

With the new activity monitor (changed from process viewer), you can not only see RAM usage, but CPU, disk and network usage as well. It really kicks butt, and has some neat graphs that make it look like you’re doing a lot of work when your boss comes in for the 4th time in an hour.

So, do you have some favorites that I didn’t mention? Let me know!

By admin • Articles, Power User Monday Tip of the Week • Comments Off • Tags: ad campaign, butt, change, cool things, function, good time, grab, graphs, jon gales, Panther, PDFs, Photoshop, ram usage, search function, sheer speed, sort, switcher, time, Word

Apr 27 2009

Getting the Most from Thunderbird

This partner in crime to the Firefox browser is arguably the best way to get your email. I know it is the default client of several of the ‘Mercs, and should be yours too.

Sometimes overshadowed by the popularity of the browser, Thunderbird has a slew of complementary extensions, which is what we’ll be looking at today.

First up, we’ll put Thunderbird on equal footing with in line spell checking. While the default install comes with a spelling dialog, many of us prefer the convenience of mark-as-you-type spell-checking.

spellingTB Getting the Most from Thunderbird

Grab the In-Line SpellChecker extension here. Remember that Thunderbird extensions must be downloaded to disk and installed from the Extensions window (click the +).

Next up we’ll set up Thunderbird to retrieve your Yahoo! or Hotmail with the WebMail extension. After installing the WebMail extension and either the Yahoo! or Hotmail extension, you’ll be able to configure a new email account to retrieve your mail from your web-based system.

WebMailTB Getting the Most from Thunderbird

To set up the extension you’ll have to select a free port for your system to emulate a mail server. Once you have a green status light, TB will pull down your mail.

Add an icon representing the weather in the zip code of your choice with the World Weather extension. The icon and temperature shows up below your mail folders on the left.

Now, to lighten things up we’ll bring in the tunes with the Thunderbird version of FoxyTunes. With this extension you’ll be able to control iTunes from inside Thunderbird.

FoxyTunesTB Getting the Most from Thunderbird

Adjust volume, skip around and view the playing track in this subtle interface along the bottom of your Mail window.

Now, you’ve got an email application to be reckoned with! Take advantage of these extensions to bulk up your Thunderbird, and I’ll see you back here next week.

Brian

By admin • Articles, Freeloader Friday Download of the Week • Comments Off • Tags: client, convenience, default client, footing, foxytunes, grab, hotmail, line, mail folders, mail server, mail window, mercs, new email account, partner in crime, Thunderbird, WebMail, world weather, Yahoo

Apr 27 2009

Newton Lives Part 2– WiFi, Bluetooth and More

In part one we connected to our Newtons to OS X. Now we’ll grab drivers and hardware to bring your vintage hardware into the 21st century.

Wifi

Wireless Internet has become the ubiquitous communication standard. Of course, it wasn’t so when Apple had the Newton family on the drawing board.

NewtonWifi Newton Lives Part 2 WiFi, Bluetooth and More

Fortunately there are drivers out there for common PCMCIA Wifi cards. A second set of packages make even more compatible. Unfortunately WEP and WPA aren’t supported. Grab a good mail client and browser too.

Bluetooth

Another set of drivers bring Bluetooth into the picture. Bluetooth on your Newton gets you sync and more. I should mention that you can also sync via Wifi. Check out the site for a list of compatible hardware.

Mass Storage

Out of the box, Newtons support expensive and hard to find linear flash memory cards. Thanks to this driver you can mount and format Flash memory cards like CF or SD via PCMCIA adapter.

The drivers are shareware, but you can format and use one 2 MB partition for free. Because Newton reads only its own format, you won’t be able to use the cards to transfer files, but you can use them for supplemental space for applications and data.

It goes without saying that the Newton is alive and well. And, thanks to the power of the community, we can enjoy more than just killer handwriting recognition and amazing battery life – we can stay in the game with the latest in communication and storage.

Note: Both Part I and II were of this series were written on an eMate 300 running Newton OS 2.1.

Brian

By admin • Articles, Freeloader Friday Download of the Week • Comments Off • Tags: Bluetooth, browser, client, course, emate 300, family, flash memory cards, grab, handwriting recognition, hardware, linear flash memory, mail client, mb partition, newton family, newton os, set, Sync, ubiquitous communication, vintage hardware, Wireless

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