I downloaded it late last night and thought I would have a quick browse around with it. I almost always use Safari on the Mac which I consider to be a very fast web browser and on par with Firefox, but upon opening up Chrome and using it for a little while you do notice the speed in which web pages load. Speed is always something that we are looking for in a web browser because we all want the fastest load times possible and Chrome certainly doesn’t disappoint here.

As far as appearance goes, if you have used the Windows version of Chrome at all you will notice that it is all very similar but with a more…Mac’ish feel to it, the colour scheme has been adapted to better fit within the OS X environment. Although Google have equipped Chrome with a host of different themes that can be added to it as well to change up the look. It does offer the now expected feature of tabbed browsing, however it does so in a different manner to what we are all used to. As mac users if you remember back to when the beta version of Safari 4 was released the behaviour of the tabs was to sit above the address bar? Well this is the same way that tabs are implemented in Chrome – I really like this way of setting out the tabs as it maximises your viewing area which can be especially valuable if you are on a laptop and it is something that I wish had been kept in Safari.

The other neat thing that you will notice is that you lose the search bar that we have come to expect, it is no longer a separate box to type your search into. Google Chrome integrates the address bar and search box all into one and they call it the Omnibox. Therefore if you know the URL go ahead and type it in, but if your not sure use the same box and do a Google (or other specified search engine) search.

One of the other things that has become standard in all modern browsers is the ability to browse the web in ‘private’ mode, Chrome also has this functionality which they call Incognito. Essentially meaning that there will be no cookies or web history saved from sites you visit while ‘incognito’ this is a very good feature if you are using a public computer and would like to further increase your safety while doing internet banking or shopping. I do however like the rather humorous explanation that Google gives about the Incognito function.

All in all this is a very capable browser and I like it a lot! I’m glad it is finally available on the Mac and Linux platforms for all to utilise. Google Chrome is available for download here: http://www.google.com/chrome

And further information about the browser is available here: http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/features_mac.html

iPhoto does a great job at keeping all your pics in one place and organising them for you, however there are a few things that kind of bug me when it comes to iPhoto. Due to the fact that iPhoto automatically bundles your photos into a giant blob of data under a folder called iPhoto Library. When you navigate to this folder in your Finder and click on it it doesn’t display files like you would expect it to if the photos were stored in a normal folder. Instead what happens is you click the folder and iPhoto opens up, this is no help when you’re trying to select photos to upload to Facebook for example!

Picasa 3 – the latest version – turns out to be a great program! If you want you can switch all of your photos over to this program and let it handle everything. This solves the above mentioned problem because Picasa will save the files in the sensible and ‘logical’ way of doing it. However if you still prefer to continue using iPhoto thats ok too. Picasa will reference the files in your iPhoto library for you to use within the Picasa program, using the program this way doesnt solve the annoying folder problem. However it does allow you to take advantage of a few really neat features.

The Features

File Management

If you choose to use both programs simultaneously that is fine! In fact great because Picasa simply reads your iPhoto library, if you end up making changes to the photo in Picasa the program will prompt you to create a copy. This saves the original in iPhoto and copies it so you don’t loose the precious original copy.

Like the latest verson of iPhoto does with Faces & Places, Picasa does this as well. I have found the face recognition in iPhoto to be easier to use and more effective at how it recognises the faces. Picasa makes you go through and actually type in the name for everyone in every photo even if you have already tagged them. Never the less if you don’t use iPhoto 09 then you get the faces and places capability for free.

Creative Tools

My favourite feature in Picasa is the Collage tool. Basically to use this you select the desired photos and press the collage button, the program will randomly ’scatter’ these onto a virtual table for you. You can then alter each individual photo by resizing, rotating and moving it. Once you create the collage it is saved under the projects tab for you.

This program is also good at extending photo editing beyond the standard red-eye removal too. Select a photo you want and you can actually put in text overlay using different fonts and colours, retouch the photo, straighten and crop, automatically and manually adjust exposure and color. Very very cool!

This program also allows you to create a movie slideshow of you photos as well, simply select the photos you want  to appear in the slideshow and press the slideshow button. Once you have made the appropriate changes its all ready to rock and role.

If you are a blogger using Blogger, there’s also a quick button here as well which allows you to quickly and easily send a photo to your blog.

This is just a brief overview of some of the cool things that this program can do for you, I think I will be using it mainly in conjunction with iPhoto. But it really is a great piece of software to have and why not – its a free download for Macs and you can also get the Windows version for free as well.

Grab the download from the Picasa website: picasa.google.com

If you are anything like me, it drives me crazy when all I want to do is sync my phone with iTunes and every time I connect it – iPhoto opens. It opens whether there are new photos on my phone or not (thats possibly the most annoying part – please fix this Apple). So I went on a mission to find out how do disable iPhoto from automatically opening when you plug in an iPhone or digital camera. Turns out that it is pretty simple!

Essentially you just need to open iPhoto, select the ‘iPhoto’ menu > Preferences > General Tab > Connecting Camera Options > No Program

This will stop any programs automatically opening when you connect any iPhone or Digital Camera, and allows you to then manually open it when you see fit.

There are other options for doing this, such as using Image Capture. I think they may have taken this out in Snow Leopard 10.6 because I just can’t find it. But presumably in prior versions of OS X you can open Image Capture and follow a similar process to selecting which programs you want your computer to open when connecting a camera.

This is one of the new features that Apple included in iTunes version 9. If you have ever had to import more than a single file into iTunes at a time then I think you need to be aware of this method.

Apple have created a folder called ‘Automatically Add to iTunes’, and any media that you place in this folder will automatically be added to your library and organised in the appropriate way. It really is a shame that they decided to hide this folder away down in the depths of you’re computer because it certainly does make importing files a whole heck of a lot easier.

Just a little thing to be aware of when it comes to putting files into this folder. Don’t be alarmed when they suddenly disappear – it’s ok! What iTunes does it takes the file and puts it within the iTunes library files with all of your other media.

Hopefully this little tip will help out

It’s here, Dropbox have released an app for the iPhone & iPod Touch. I have written several posts about dropbox now, and the more I use it the more and more I find it useful and this just adds to the argument. The beauty of Dropbox is that it creates a folder on all of you’re linked computers and anything that you keep in this folder will automatically be updated on you’re web account and any other computers that you have installed and authorised Dropbox to work on.

So back to the iPhone app! When you launch the application for the first time, you get a little intoductory PDF to look at which runs you through the ‘good to know’s’ of the application. After this you are prompted to input you’re dropbox log-in details then you’re phone will automatically reach out to the dropbox servers and bring back down icons for all of the files and folders that are currently in you’re dropbox folder.

For files like presentations, word documents, photos, PDF’s and so on, you simply tap on the representative icon and viola the file loads and you have a full screen and very legible copy of the document to read. Very handy for viewing files that you need on the spur of the moment or when you have left your laptop behind.

One of the other things that I find great about the dropbox app for the iPhone is the ability to shoot/choose existing photos & videos (for those of you with a 3GS) and upload these to you’re dropbox folder. This of course sync’s back down to any of the other computers you have linked. This is a god send for getting photos back to the computer rather than dealing with the time taken up to connect you’re phone and wait for it to sync etc etc etc all just to get a photo.

The other beauty of this app is the ease in sharing files in you’re dropbox. When you are in one of the selected files and in viewing mode, simply tap on the envelope in the lower left corner and enter the email of the person you would like to share the folder with. This sends the person an email containing a link which is valid for 30 days from time of sending. When the link is clicked the recipient is taken to a browser link to view the file.

To me this is just one more reason to use Dropbox on my computers at home, and for anybody who does use Dropbox – if you own an iPhone or iPod Touch, you should definitely give this app a go!!! To get the application on you’re phone or get extra information about Dropbox you can visit their site here: getdropbox.com

Email

First and easiest is syncing your email. To do this you’re email provider needs to support what is called IMAP, generally they will tell you to set up your email programs with POP3. The difference here is that POP3 is a system which downloads what is on your email server and stores a copy on your local system – this is excellent if you only use one computer. But throw in your mobile phone and your laptop on top of your desktop computer and you will be getting the same email showing as unread multiple times, and if you delete it on one computer it will still be on the other devices same with your sent emails – frustrating!!.

The beauty of using IMAP based email is that every-time your computer or mobile phone is told to check your mail it will only show you what is currently on the email systems server, so think of it this way: somebody sends you an email > it goes to your email providers central computer > your computer or phone checks to see if there is any mail > it pulls down a copy of this and shows you your mail > all the time keeping a message on the emails providers computers. If you make a change such as delete or move it to another folder the action is mimicked on the email systems server. Therefore the next time one of your other devices checks for new mail it will see exactly what is on the email server and refresh all of your devices.

Setting up an IMAP email is hard to document because every internet/email service provider is set up a different way therefore there isn’t one set way to do this, generally speaking by navigating through your suppliers support pages and by using google to search you will generally be able to find a way to set this up. If your primary email is done through a service like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo etc this makes it easier because by nature these are already an IMAP way of managing your email just navigate to their websites and they will give you details on how to set this up for your email program.

Files

Mobile Me provides a service called iDisk, which is like your own portion of disk space on Apples servers. This means it appears as a local disk on your computers however it can be accessed by any computer you give access to or via the web. The nice thing about this is that if you work between multiple computers you know just what it is like to go out one day and have forgotten to copy the file across. My solution to this was to use a service called Dropbox. I have blogged about this previously so won’t go into too much depth, but for free with this service you get 2GB worth of space which I find is adequate for files and some pictures. You can pay for a larger disk space if you want to. This service provides the same function that I mentioned earlier about providing an online central place to store files, but the beauty of dropbox is that whatever you put in your dropbox folder on one computer is automatically synced up to the dropbox server and back down to any other computer that you have installed dropbox on!

Calendar

Another great feature of Mobile Me is the ability to synchronize your calendars across different machines and you’re iPhones, Mobile Me does a really great job of this by pushing any changes made up to their servers and back down to your other devices to be updated. There is one great way to achieve this for free and this is with Google Calendar.

Once you have a google account you have full access to this feature for free, the process is fairly simple however I won’t discuss it here for the fact that it is so in-depth, however if this interests you check out the links posted below to find out how to set this up. Below are the links to platforms and programs it is available with:

• Click here for links to set up Calendar
• Works with Mozilla Sunbird
• Apple iCal & iPhone
• Microsoft Outlook
• Windows Mobile
• Blackberry

Contacts

Google really provides so many great services at no charge and due to the nature of how your contacts with Google are managed – that is in the ‘cloud’, it allows them to offer this free synchronizing services for contacts as well. So like with the Calendar when you add or update a contact on your computer or phone, it will update this on every device enabled to do so. Again the explanation of how to do this is to in depth for me to cover here but if you would like to enable this as well check out the link here > Google Sync Services

The update is set to give a number of new features unique to the 3.0 software update, the most notable is the capability for 3GS users to shoot and upload videos directly to your facebook account. There’s added functionality giving you the ability to create photo albums, it will save text that you are typing incase you’re interrupted by a text or phone call. The update also refreshes the design of the app to better reflect the recent changes in facebook’s overall design. It would also seem that there have been upgrades to the overall stability of the app, the developer was quoted to say “Everything that used to scroll slowly now scrolls like butter.”

Overall even though it’s just an update I’m looking forward to the update as it is one of my most frequently used apps on my iPhone.

The Dock

Apple really have excelled at making an incredibly user friendly operating system and it may take a couple of weeks to a month to get the hang of it but hang in there it’s worth it. The biggest thing that hits you when you start up your new mac is the ‘dock’.

Essentially this is one of the main places where you’re applications or programs live, each symbol in the dock represents a program. Now working the dock really is simple. To load a program simply click on its image, only one click is needed. You may notice this icon bounce once or twice while the program loads, after loading is complete your program will open and you will notice a little round white glow appear under the program in the dock. This glow means that a program is running.

By right clicking on one of these icons you will get a list of other options, for example on your mail icon you might get options like get mail or compose new message. You can change what is displayed in your dock, for example I like to have only my most regularly used programs in the dock, if there is something there you don’t like simply click and drag it off the dock. This will take the icon off the dock but don’t worry you haven’t deleted it, if you need to get it back simply find the program in your finder (more about this later) and drag the appropriate application back onto the dock.

There are a number of cool features you may like as well such as being able to magnify the icons when you roll your mouse over them, as well as increasing or decreasing the size of the dock by cliking the little dotted line (located in the picture above five icons in from the right), you can hide it as well when not being used and it will pop back up when you put your cursor at the bottom of the screen. The dock allows for a very user friendly workspace.

The other quick thing that I would mention about the dock is the trash can and it has a couple of functions. This performs the funtion of the recycle bin in windows. The main use for the trash can is to delete files – you do this by clicking and dragging files into the trash. However the trash can has another main use, and this is to eject items, for example CD’s from the CD drive or USB Keys. There will be an image of either a white folder (representing storage) or a CD on the desktop and to eject them properly click and drag the appropriate one onto the trash, this then ejects it from the system.

Title Bar

The title bar runs accross the very top of the screen, this is one of the things that really got me when first using a mac. Where in a windows environment all of your menus are located at the top of the active window on a mac your menu’s are all located within this bar running accross the top of the screen. There usually are not any options available in the active windows.

The apple logo in the left hand side is always there, never moves, this gives you access to info about your system, software updates as well as all of your commands such as restart, log off, shut down etc. Next to that is usually the name of the program that is currently active on the screen with the other applicable menus running next to it. These menus change depending on which program is currently active on your screen. In this picture you can see I had Safari active at the time but if I clicked on an iTunes window the name and menu’s would change to iTunes applicable menu’s.

Over the left hand side are other icons and information such as time and date, the volume, the airport (wifi) status and here the stronger the signal the more little rounded bars you get, there’s also information about what time machine is doing as well as other logos that may get on there from programs you install on your system. You can click on all of these as well and they give you links to settings and options for each application.

Finder

The finder is you Mac alternative to Explorer in Windows. This is where you will navigate to locate and manage files and folders on your computer. Down the right hand side you will see different locations at the top are the hard drive folders, under that you will see network shared drives or computers, under places you will see all of your local files and folders, Documents; Movies; Music; Pictures are quick links to the respective data in your login.

There is a number of ways to display your files and folders in the finder, the method displayed in the pictures shows a list of files and folders and as you open a folder it opens it’s contents in the list to the right and so on, once you arrive at your designated file the box to the right of the file will display info about it, press space bar and you get a ‘quick view’ of what you are looking for.

You can also navigate in the traditional sense of seeing a big folder you click on it and it opens the containing files. Another way I like to look at folder and files is buy using cover flow, this provides you with a graphic view of what files are in a folder so you can see what is in the picture or word document and flick through them as you would with a book or filing cabinet. The finder has many more features but it would take forever to cover them all.

Spotlight

Do you hate digging through all of your files and folders trying to find what you’re looking for? Well spotlight is the answer for you. Spotlight is a very powerful way of searching the contents of your computer, you start typing the name of what you are looking for and spotlight will find files, applications, music, basically anything on your computer that matches what you are searching for. Simply click on the desired result in the list and hey presto it opens it up.

I find spotlight a great way to search for and open applications that I don’t use frequently enough to have on the dock, simply type the first few letters and bang there it is. Spotlight is also duplicated throughout a lot of apples programs so anywhere you see a little magnifying glass or long oval shaped field you can do a search.

I find this really powerful, it is really quick to load your results and does so while you are typing, it constantly indexes what is on your computer so it will be ready when you need to search. This has been executed in a much better way than what Windows offers. No more lost files ever again!

Expose

This is one of my most favourite things in Apples operating system OS X, Expose! All too often I find my desktop getting incredibly cluttered with open windows. Now in Windows your solution to this is by clicking the appropriate window in the taskbar, but not on a Mac. Now activating Expose can differ between computers, some older macs you would click the F9 Key, new mac keyboards have it on the F3 key represented by a little icon above it, or you can also program your mouse to use a certain click to activate it (my favourite way of using expose). Essentially what it does is graphically move each and every window onto the screen at once, shrinking the window size a little but giving you a view of what is going on in that window at that point in time, and yes video continues to play while you are in expose.

Once you have activated expose, you move your cursor to the window you would like to get into, it changes to a light blue color all over and you can then select that windows by clicking. The window you have clicked will be brought to the very front of all windows. Neat hey!

The Apple Keyboard

The keyboard is the final thing I will talk about in this post, now you may think a keyboard is a keyboard. But not on a mac! Now of course they still perform all the same function as any other keyboard but theres a few differences.

The first that you may notice is the Command Key, this acts like your control key on a windows computer. For functions like Cntrl + S for save on windows you would use command + s on a mac. There are tons of other uses for the command key but this is the main one. You may notice in the menu’s on a Mac that next to certain commands there are funny little expressions these are basically keyboard shortcuts, there are heaps of them but if there are functions that you repeatedly perform then you may like to remember the keyboard shortcuts.

One of the other big differences here is that there is a return key in place of the Enter key. Return was basically used in the early days of the mac as a way to ‘return’ to the beginning on the next line as in a word processor. Now it performs much the same function as the enter key.

Another thing that may puzzle you is that there are two delete keys on the mac keyboard. The delete key where a backspace key would usually be is just that, a backward delete. So in a word processor or when entering other text it deletes characters in a backwards manner. The other delete key, where a ‘delete’ key is normally on a windows keyboard. Is a forwards delete, so deletes from the right side of your cursor. Now this key doesn’t perform the function of deleting a file like it does on windows. To delete a file you will need to click and drag it to the trash can in the dock.

Another quirky thing about macs is the eject key. Now all modern macs execpt for the high end MacPro have slot loading disk drives, so there isn’t a tray that comes out. So in order to get the disk out simply press and hold the eject key for a second or two and the computer will eject the disk for you. Alternatively you can click and drag the disk’s image on your desktop to the trash to achieve the same result.

I hope this little guide is of use to you and gets you on your way to becoming a fluent Mac user, and most importantly of all enjoy your new purchase!!!

]]> http://lukeandmelissah.com/new-to-mac/feed 0 http://lukeandmelissah.com/5-fav-iphone-apps http://lukeandmelissah.com/5-fav-iphone-apps#comments Fri, 05 Jun 2009 08:46:59 +0000 Luke http://lukeandmelissah.com/?p=97 I thought I would do  bit of a list of my top five favourite iPhone apps, these are apps that I either use every day, find really fun or just find really useful! (If you want one of these click on the photo and it will take you to the app store in iTunes)

Twitterific

Twitterific

I have put twitterrific first in my list as this is an app that I use everyday without fail, whether its just posting a new tweet or just sussing out what is going on out there in the twitterverse this is what I use. I used the original version of twitterific as well however I think that the second version is a major improvement with all the added funtionality.

This is the main screen shown to the left that gives you the option to choose what you want to look at, theres the public timeline of course showing the most recent tweets from arround the world, there is of course then your feed from the people that you are following. What I think is a great idea but don’t use is the ability to service several accounts in this one app. Another thing I really like is the Nearby search. It uses Location services and finds other tweeters in your area, a really useful tool for getting in contact with people in the same area as you that you may not otherwise find.

This menu also gives the ability to see all trending topics as well so you can see what’s hot out there. Within the app when looking at your twitterfeed it is really fully featured and well laid out. And the best thing if you don’t mind seeing the odd advert is that this one is free, or you can pay a little to get the pro version which is not ad supported.

Facebook

Facebook

This app is possibly one of the reasons that I still actually use Facebook because it makes it so easy to access on the go and works just like you would expect it too. The home screen basically gives you access to all of your friends status updates, all of your notifications and invites. You can also toggle what type of view you want if you want all status updates displaying or a mix between that and what everyone is up to.

This app also makes it really easy to snap a photo and upload it straight into your account, which is really great for those candid photos you want to share straight away. You also have access to fully view other peoples photo libraries. There is the ability to use the chat function of facebook if that it what you’re into, while also being able to check on your inbox private messages while enabling you to send back and forward.

Another neat and possibly fatal trick with this app is the ability to use the accelerometer in the phone to refresh the page, simply by shaking the phone it updates! Eliminating the need for an actual refresh button to clutter up the user interface.

Shazam

Shazam

This is an app that I don’t use frequently but have found a lifesaver!!! As most people would recognise from the Apple iPhone adverts on tv this app listens to recorded music, searches its library and returns what the song title and artist is. I don’t know about you but it frustrates me to no end when I hear a song on the radio and don’t know the name of it – this solves that problem.

It is really simple to use, basically just open the app > hit the tag now button at the top right corner and hold your phone close enough to the music source so it can recognise what it playing. It will listen to the music playing for about 12 seconds or so. After this it will process for a few more seconds and if it can recognise the song (which 9 times out of 10 it does) you get a result. You can tap on the result to go straight to the iTunes store on your phone and purchase if you like, otherwise Shazam will store the result so you can access it later.

Simple and really handy! Solves a problem in a nice elegant apple kind-of way

Flight Control

Flight Control

Ok so I’m not much of a gamer but I do love this game. It got me HOOKED! Essentially the aim of this game is to act the part of Flight Controler and successfully land the aircraft onto their appropriate airstrips without crashing them into each other. Simple I know, but the game puts up a good challenge. There are a mulititude of different aircraft and they all fly at different speeds which throws a spanner in the works.

You basically use your finger tap on the appropriate aircraft and draw a line that you want it to follow to land on the correct air strip. The more you land the more planes you get coming onto your screen, it’s one of those games where you know you can do better so it just keeps you coming back.

Only today there was an update released for this app which gave different airfields and a bigger number of planes, as well as the ability to fast forward time. I don’t know about fast forwarding time as I have enough trouble at normal speed.

Wordpress

Wordpress

I have only recently started running a wordpress blog/website, and most of the time when I’m doing a post or updating something I am sitting infront of my computer at home. However I just love the possibilities that this app allows for.

It allows you to plug in the details for any amount of blogs that you maintain, it is a very simple setup provided you know your username, password and websites URL. After this you simply tap on the website on the screen shown to the left and your get thrown into your options. You can write a new blog, edit a webpage, make a new page and manage comments.

This is such a powerful tool as it allows you to post wherever you may be provided you have mobile reception or wifi access. On a trip and want to share an experience? Photos? You can do that with this app! No more waiting to get home or back onto wifi access for your laptop to be able to use this app. I posted one of my blog posts the other day with this all on my iPhone when we were running close to our internet limit, great hey

If you run a wordpress blog/website and have an iPhone, you must install this app.