Non-intuitive shortcuts

Excel
Double-click cell to edit content: Ctrl-U
Insert cell: Alt-click
Insert line in text within cell: Ctrl-Alt-Enter

Firefox
Shift between tabs: Ctrl-Tab

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Making your Mac keyboard-centric

I noticed a while back that my Mac is very mouse-centric. Hitting TAB only let me jump through text-input options. For example, when I want to sign into my wireless network (see box below), hitting TAB only jumps me between "Network Name" and "Password", and I'll have to use my mouse to choose the type of Wireless Security I require.



So I looked it up, and found out that Macintosh systems were developed as mouse-controlled environments and hence their reliance on the mouse. I shrugged my shoulders and put it down as one of the quirks that I've got to live with since I made the decision to switch.

But I really shouldn't have given up that quickly because the solution was right under my nose. I kinda stumbled into it while looking for something else, and it was simply a matter of going into system preferences, selecting "keyboard & mouse", selecting "keyboard shortcuts" and checking "all controls" under "full keyboard access".



Now I can TAB to my heart's desire.

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Improvised Dividers in iCal

Because I cannot wait for the Leopard.

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How to password protect your files on a Mac

I have a secret. I keep a document of my online identities and passwords. It is a pretty vulnerable document to have hanging around in my hard drive, but I just can't trust my brain to do the work. So I type them into my document in cryptic short-hand, but once in a while I worry that it is not cryptic enough.

The next best alternative is to password protect your file, or to be precise, a folder containing your sensitive documents. You can do this by creating a disk image in disk utility.

1. Open Disk Utility (Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility)

2. Create a new disk image from folder (File>New>Disk image from folder)
3. Choose the folder you want to encrypt.

4. Select AES-128 from the Encryption pop-up menu in the Save dialog box. Save.

(Source: I like the way Ted Landau writes. I think I'll check out his books Mac OS X Help Line, Tiger Edition and Mac 0S X disaster relief. )

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Mailboxer for Apple Mail

The search function in email applications has improved dramatically over the years. So much so that I've gradually done away with the laborious task of manually organising my emails into folders, or even creating complicated rules so that my inbox with be sorted in a sensible way. Instead, I rely on spotlight to find the email I want.

But this means that at least once a day, I'm typing in the name of my boss into the search bar to look for a particular email or attachment.

Mailboxer changes all of that.

Mailboxer is a pretty sweet utility that helps you create Smart Mailboxes in Apple Mail according to your smart groups in Address Group. What does this mean? It means that the next time I need to look for an email from my boss, all I need to do is to click on the boss' name in my smart mailbox folder, and it will do the necessary.

Alright. This is how you get started.

1. Fire up Address Book.
2. Create a new Smart Group. Add the emails you want to be in that Smart Group. Remember to choose "any" of the following conditions from the top drop-down menu.



3. Download Mailboxer.
4. Run Mailboxer from your Applications Folder.
5. Select the Smart Group you created in Address Book. Choose the name you would like it to appear as in Apple Mail.



6. Click "Create Smart Mailboxes".
7. That would create a Smart Mailbox in Apple Mail.


I have a Smart Mailbox for Friends and one for Work. Mailboxer also has the option of creating individual smart mailboxes for all the contacts in your Address Book, but that's a little over the top for me.

When you need to change any of the contacts in your Smart Mailbox, just edit your Smart Group in Address Book and run Mailboxer again. When you are tired of being so organised, you can delete the Smart Mailboxer with just one click.

Mailboxer is donation-ware.

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Quicksilver + Firefox Quick Search

[An irrelevant introduction: What a hot day. I've been taking more than my fair share of showers. Three on Sunday, and I'm thinking of taking another one in about five minutes just to cool down. A friend who lived in Sudan told me that she soaked in a bathtub of water every afternoon just to cool down. Temperatures reach the forties over there. Crazy.]

In other news, Quicksilver + Firefox quicksearch bookmarks = magic on your fingertips. In the preferences pane (Cmd + ; ), tick "Web search module" under "All plugins".



Restart Quicksilver. Type in the name of your Quick Search web page in the first tab. In the second tab, choose "Search for", and in the third, type in what you're looking for.



There you have it.

To scale photos with quicksilver, install the "Image Manipulation Actions" plugin. For the dictionary, install the "dictionary module" (duh).

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Mail.app non-tip

While trying to set up an email reminder in iCal today, I discovered a kink that has eaten up an hour of my time this morning. I can't receive emails sent from my own gmail account in Apple Mail! If I open up the web interface, the email is there; but it never gets downloaded by Mail.

The reason given in this post is that gmail treats the sent email as downloaded because it is sent from your own account. I tried sending it to my yahoo and other gmail account which get forwarded to my primary gmail account to no avail.

Now, what is the point of a reminder that you cannot see?

-----
Bonus Mail.app tip (for listening to me gripe):
How to set up shortcut for creating hyperlinks in Mail.app (Source)

1. System Preferences> Keyboard and Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts
2. At bottom of list choose "All Applications" > Mail
3. Click the "+" sign.
4. Type in the command exactly as it appears in the Menu. ("Add Hyperlink...")
5. Choose shortcut (Option+Command+H)

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Mail.app tip: How to get three-column panes

I didn't know I liked it until I had it, but once I had it I could not live without it.

To get three column panes for Mail.app, download Letterbox 0.16 by Aaron. The plugin lives in ~/Library/Mail/Bundles.

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Blogger Tip: How to align images not hosted by Blogger

In the img tag,

<img src="http://flickr.com/image2">

add the code in bold

<img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left;" src="http://flickr.com/image2">

The margin bit, of course, is optional.

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How to type the Em dash

In Word
Ctrl + Alt + - (use the minus on the numeric pad)

In PageMaker, Blogger, Word, or any other application that handles text
Alt + 0151

(to type the en dash, use alt + 0150)

Confused about whether to use the hyphen, the en dash or the em dash? Read this.

P.S. On a Mac, it is Shift + Option + -

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Shift-delete in Outlook

Do you use outlook? Do you receive spam and deadly viruses? Then you will like this nifty shortcut.

To permanently delete an email, hold down SHIFT while deleting the message.

Can't wait for the next unsuspecting mydoom32 virus to come my way. muahahahahah!

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Tip #1

You should not have an over-ripe banana for breakfast, followed with by coffee and milk (somewhat cuddled curdled from swishing around in the bus), the morning you are in charge of a company function.

Just don't do it.

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Windows XP Tips: How to create a thumbnail for your folder

If you have a folder of pictures, Windows XP chooses the four newest pictures as the thumbnails for the folder. If you look at the picture below, the second row of folders are examples of the default thumbnails pulled out by Windows.



What if you would prefer a different photo as the thumbnail?

All you have to do is to go to the picture you want as the thumbnail -- the picture must be within the root directory of the folder, that it, it mustn't be in another folder in the folder you are creating the thumbnail for, create a copy and rename that as "folder.jpg". That picture then becomes the thumbnail pic for the folder. See first and third folder on first row.

(To hide the file names, hold down the shift key when changing to "View Thumbnails".)

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How to reduce PDF size

I've always been baffled with this one. Usually I use the "Reduce
File Size" under "File" in Adobe Acrobat, but it is woefully
inadequate. A 3MB file is reduced to a bulky 2.5MB, even with the
most cut-throat criteria.

But the solution has all the while been under my nose: Photoshop.

1. Open the PDF in photoshop.
2. Save as "PDF" format.
3. Choose a low quality setting.

What would I do without my trusty Photoshop?

(What do Mac users use to edit photos, btw? Is it good?)

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