How to improve your Mac experience with useful window management techniques

As a hardcore Windows user, I enjoy being able to use shortcut keys to cycle through the applications I'm working on with minimum use of the mouse. The mouse is indeed a very great invention that improves interactivity between humans and machines. But still, nothing beats the use of shortcut keys. When combined you will vastly improve your efficiency and productivity greatly.

Being a first time Mac user, experimenting with the Mac that I bought for my wife has been a painful process. I feel so handicapped having to rely on the mouse most of the time, trying desperately to remember the Mac hotkeys that I had learnt. I can no longer double click on the Title bar to maximize/restore my window. Pointing the mouse to the "+" takes 1-2 seconds more than I would to maximize/restore on Windows.

Rearranging your working windows on your screen is a nightmare as well. I don't understand why we can only use the lower left-hand corner of the window for resizing. Windows is so much less restrictive. You can resize with any edge. Moreover, on Windows 7, you simply drag the window to the edge of your screen to arrange 2 windows neatly side by side, which in my view, short and sweet.

This calls for me to research on why there are still Mac lovers out there who insisted that Mac is definitely more user friendly than Windows. I found the Exposé feature on Max OS X which is something that you cannot find on Windows. Usually, fanciful stuffs are not 100% useful. The only reason they exist is to satisfy the emotional appetite of humans. But the Exposé feature is different. Its fanciful and yet useful at the same time. This will definitely be on my top useful list for a perfect Mac experience.

Heres a tutorial video that shows what I'm talking about...



To conclude, this still doesn't address my expectations to arrange my working window side by side in a fast and efficient manner. My search will continue. If you have any tips, please share in the comments. Thanks.

How to show hidden folders files in MAC?

I keep forgetting the command to show or hide hidden files in my Finder. So keeping this as a post as a reference to myself. Hope its useful to someone else as well. =)

You will need to copy and paste the commands below into your Terminal application.





To show hidden files,

$ defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
$ killall Finder

To hide back,

$defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
$killall Finder

There is no iPod Touch 3G for ...

I just sold away my new iPod Touch 8GB which I got from Apple Back To School promotion.

During the sales process, theres quite a few number of people asking me if its the iPod Touch 3G version.

Heres where the confusion lies. The iPod Touch 3G is only available on the 32GB or 64GB version. 8GB version if iPod Touch is only released up to 2G. You can find more information on the different models of iPod Touch released in Wikipedia.

Though there is no iPod Touch 3G for the 8GB version, it will come with the new iOS 4 software as well. However, multitasking and on some models homescreen was disabled for the second generation iPod Touch because Apple thought the iPod was too slow for these features.

3 iPhone 4 problems you should know

The iPhone 4 is gonna be released soon in Singapore. Heres the top 3 problems encountered by current iPhone 4 owners that you need to be aware of before you place your order.

iPhone 4 yellow screen
There have been multiple reports on yellow spots seen at the corner of the iPhone 4 display screen. It is claimed that the discoloration is due to the adhesive used to bond the layers of glass in the screen together. The adhesive requires a period of drying time and needs time to disappear.
[More info from Apple Support]

The iPhone 4 glass may shatter when dropped

The iPhone 4 front and back glass panel is made up of engineered glass. The material is in fact aluminosilicate glass which is chemically strengthened to be 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic and designed to be ultra durable. However, the caveat is that it will make the material more brittle and will shatters when dropped. Same thing as the windscreen shattering on impact. So new owners of iPhone 4, be careful not to drop your precious.

The 'Death Grip'
When the iPhone 4 is hold in a certain way, the reception will be lost. I have wrote about this in my earlier post regarding fixing this issue. Not to worry, Apple is already working on a patch iOS 4.0.1 to fix this. Should expect the patch to be available pretty soon.

Where is the mac page up, page down, home, end key?

Switching over from Windows, I feel handicap without the Home, End, Page Up, Page Down buttons on a mac.

Sadly, the keyboard shortcut on mac is quite different...




Heres a mapping to switch from the windows shortcut

Function                      | Windows      | MAC OS X

------------------------------+--------------+-------------------

Move to line start            | Home         | Command + Left

Move to line end              | End          | Command + Right

Scroll 1 Page Up              | Page Up      | Fn + Up

Scroll 1 Page Down            | Page Down    | Fn + Down

Move to Beginning of Document | Ctrl + Home  | Command + Up

Move to End of Document       | Ctrl + End   | Command + Down

Move 1 word left              | Ctrl + Left  | Option + Left

Move 1 word right             | Ctrl + Right | Option + Right

How to take screenshot on mac

As I was doing some documentations on my new Mac, one of the few things that comes to mind is how do I do a print screen?

So heres the few possibilities:

1. Capture full screen

• Hold down Command + Shift + 3
• Release all
• Done! Your screenshot is saved to your desktop.

2. Capture a specific area of your screen

• Hold down Command + Shift + 4
• Release all keys
• Your mouse will turn into a crosshair, select the area you wanna capture
• Done! Your screenshot is saved to your desktop

3. Capture the current active window

• Hold down Command + Shift +4 (Yes its the same combo, no mistake)
• Your mouse will turn into a crosshair
• Press SPACEBAR once
• Your mouse will turn into a camera
• Mouse over the window you wanna capture, the window will appear to be hightlighted.
• Click on it and you are done.
• Your screenshot is saved to your desktop.

A bit different from Windows with the Alt+Printscreen combination with 3 keys involved instead of 2 keys. If your fingers are small, then have to get used to it.

MAC OS X keyboard shortcut reference

Speed up your productivity with keyboard shortcuts. Heres my collection of useful keyboard shortcut for MAC. Of course its not a comprehensive list of shortcuts as its only meant to summarize those that are used more often. For a more complete list, you can find it from Dan at http://www.danrodney.com/mac/

General Essentials Keystrokes
cmd+q = quit
cmd+o = open file
cmd+c = copy selection
cmd+v = paste selection
cmd+i = get info (on current selected object/file/dir)
cmd+n = new window/document
cmd+s = save
cmd+m = minimize
cmd+h = hide app
cmd+opt+h = hide OTHER apps

To switch between apps
opt+cmd+click on running app icon = hide all other apps
opt+cmd+click on running app window = hide all other apps

To control your mac
cmd+opt+eject = sleep
cmd+ctrl+eject = graceful restart
cmd+opt+ctrl+eject = graceful shutdown

Dock related
cmd+opt+d = hide/show dock

How to move from Picasa to iPhoto on MAC

 If you just got your new MAC and wondering how to upload photos to your google picasa account, theres a tool available from Google that help you move from Picasa to iPhoto...

Download the Google Picasa Web Album uploader tool, Picasa for MAC at http://picasa.google.com/mac_tools.html

It provide the following features:

• Upload photos saved on your desktop
• Upload and share iPhoto albums
• Share your photos and videos with friends

Heres the YouTube video for the Picasa for MAC Demo...

Top 5 Applications for MAC

Being a new owner of my new iMac, I am on the search for useful applications for MAC OS. Heres the list of applications that I found useful for any MAC newbie like me...

For Social - aMSN MAC Messenger
Load up your favourite chat program to reconnect with your new Mac. aMSN is able to support video chat. This will wins over the MAC MSN Messenger.

Check it out at http://www.amsn-project.net/

For Photos - iPhoto / Lightroom
Organize your photos with iPhoto. Every MAC users loves it for its simply UI. Aperture? You can forget about it. iPhoto is pre-installed on every MAC. A lot of people are complaining that its slow. For the extra touch, you can use LightRoom.


For Documents - Microsoft Office for MAC
You can't live without Microsoft Office to do your project documentations on your new MAC. Microsoft Office. Office MAC is available at http://www.microsoft.com/mac/default.mspx

For Surfing - Mozilla Firefox for Mac
An alternative to Safari if you are a Firefox fan. Your saviour if your favourite site is not fully compatible with Safari. Firefox is available at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

For Watching Movies - Perian Mac
Perian is a free, open source QuickTime component that adds native support for many popular video formats. Takes care of missing codecs and enables QuickTime to play your favourite movies. Perian Mac can be found at http://perian.org/