In Safari, if you hold the ALT key when clicking a link, the linked file will download rather than displaying in the browser window.

This is handy if someone directs you to files to download from the web, like this image file:
http://autoscopia.com/macformom/images/avaaz_billboard_jerusalem.jpg

You could click the link to open the image in your browser, then drag and drop it on your desktop, but if there are a lot of files to download that can be tedious. Instead, you can hold the ALT key and click all the links, and all the files will download to your Desktop.

I was mauled by Leopard yesterday, and then again today, in a similar manner to that described by Dr. Macinstein in the post, Mauled by a Leopard.

It's surprising there's no decent synonym for 'mauled.' I can't say I was savaged (too intense), attacked (it wasn't intentional), torn to pieces (a bit over the top), clawed (close), or scratched (what, like a kitten?). It was a mauling - there's no other word for it.

Dr. Macinstein had 3 problems:
1. Adobe Creative Suite 2 stopped working.
2. Leopard ate his keychain
3. Final Cut Studio 2 wanted his Serial Number again

I escaped problem one, but Leopard ate my keychain and Final Cut Studio 2 (ie. every Apple Pro app) lost it's serial number. I also have one other different problem: Motion won't launch.

The biggest problem was that Final Cut Studio 2 lost it's serial number. I punched in the number from the install CD, but then it began asking for the serial number for Final Cut Studio 1, as it was an upgrade. After looking for an hour at home, and then driving to the office to look there, I came to the conclusion I'd accidentally thrown away Final Cut Studio 1 in the big clear out a few months ago, when we had to make space for the birth of a new Mac (or Linux) user. So I had no serial number for Final Cut Studio 1.

In the end, I fixed the technical problem, so I didn't need the serial number, although I know I'll need it again at some unexpected and inconvenient point in time.

How to get Final Cut Studio 2's serial number back:
Incidentally, I did an Archive and Install of Leopard, so that may be a prerequisite for the following tip to work.
1. Navigate to your Previous System folder, then /Library/Application Support/ProApps/
2. Grab the file called "Final Cut Studio System ID" and drop it in the same relative location in your Leopard system folder, ie. /Library/Application Support/ProApps/

Having done that, Final Cut sprang to life, as did every other Pro app, with the exception of Motion, which still crashes on launch. I suppose I will have to re-install Motion. Hopefully I won't need serial numbers.

If someone gives you a Zip file, and you click it, OS X's built-in BOMArchiveHelper.app will unzip the file for you when you double-click it.

However, if the Zip file is password protected, you'll just get an error message. That's when you need to use the free "The Unarchiver.app." You can download it from VersionTracker.

Whitewatery people will already have The Unarchiver.app installed on their Macs. To use it to open a password protected file, right-click (or Control-click) on the zip file and select "Open with > The Unarchiver."

Incidentally, if you receive a Zip file via email, you'll want to drag the attachment to your Desktop and then double-click to unzip. If you click the file in Mail.app, it will unzip, it just won't look like it has, as it will unzip the file into the Mail Downloads folder in your Library, which you won't normally access.

For example, the image below is a brilliantly designed billboard ad currently displayed in Israel. 

"At first they look just like ordinary travel ads, and Israelis love to travel. But the idea that they might be able to travel to Damascus or Dubai (if they only sit down and start to negotiate on the basis of the Saudi Initiative...) is pretty wild in Israel -- and our soundings indicate these billboards could make waves. "80,000 Avaaz supporters demand Real Peace Talks Now" is the punchline." -- Avaaz

Translation:
Celebrate Shavuot (upcoming Jewish holiday) in Syria - just $390
* price for one room, double bed - depends on negotiating the Saudi Initiative
80,000 global e-activists demand Real Peace Talks Now
Reference

Once you sign a petition, you'll receive regular email updates with links to new campaigns. Adding your name to campaign after campaign can seem a bit monotonous, but the rewards are great. I feel I have a more effective voice than I do voting in national elections. I feel more connected to other people in the world. I feel the world is a less crazy place. 

Watch the "Stop the Clash of Civilizations" video and sign the petition:

Sign the petition to demand Real Peace Talks Now

Join us! Our numbers are growing quickly. There are now about a million of us from 198 countries.

"Avaaz" means "voice" or "song" in several languages including Hindi, Urdu, Farsi, Nepalese, Dari, Turkish, and Bosnian.

Did you know your email is bugged?

Email marketing messages typically include web bugs, which are normally small, invisible images with a tracking number in the file name. They are typically used to track when, and how often you view each message.

This isn't really a big deal, except that spammers also use web bugs. Thus, when you view a spam message - often simply by selecting it so that you can mark it as junk - you send a signal back to the sender as if to say, "Thank you very much for the spam. Please send more!" And that's probably not a signal you want to send.

How to turn off web bugs

1. Open mail > Preferences > Viewing, and uncheck the box beside "Display remote images in HTML messages"
2. Close the Preferences window.

Email messages with images will now display a "Load Images" button - for the one's you do want to view.

Find out more about web bugs on Wikipedia.

Viewing PDFs in a web browser can often be frustrating. Sometimes the text is too small to read. You can't search it. You may not be sure how to download it. It can be a drag.

If you are viewing an online PDF with Safari, control-click on the PDF. A menu will display giving you the option to zoom in or out. "Auto Size" will blow it up to the width of your browser window. And most importantly, you can select, "Open with Preview.app." Got to this PDF and try it.

Before I found out about this option, I used to download all PDFs, and then open it in Preview. When I was done, I'd locate the file and trash it. Silly me. If I use the tip above, I can simply close the PDF when I'm done and it's gone. Full control, no debris.

To select a word
Double-click it.
(Click it twice in rapid succession.)

To select a paragraph
Triple-click it.
(In some applications, like Firefox or Preview, triple-clicking selects a line of text.)

To select a block of text
Click the start position, then hold the SHIFT key and click where at the end the area you want to select. This doesn't just work in text you are writing. It also works with text you are reading, like a web page in Safari, or an email in Mail.app.

I ran into a particularly vexing problem with Extensis Suitcase at work recently, and I thought I'd share the problem here (of all places) for a couple reasons.

First, discussion boards on the web are littered with other people who have had the same problem, and few good solutions are offered.

Second, the solution is completely counter-intuitive: nobody expects developers to over-ride system settings in such a way that it appears the system is malfunctioning. So one could spend hours trouble-shooting all sorts of complex things to try to solve it, and fail miserably, when the solution for most of us will be quite simple - we're just looking in the wrong place. 

Problem: 
When you install Extensis Suitcase, it will add itself to the Login Items (System Preferences > Accounts > My Account > Login Items) for every account on the Mac. This will tell Suitcase to launch whenever anyone logs into any account on the Mac.

Obviously, there will be some users who won't want Suitcase to launch every time they log in as they don't use the application. As irritating as Extensis' presumption is, most people would probably know they simply need to remove Suitcase from the list of "Login Items" in System Preferences. The problem is, you can't. Clicking the "-" button to remove the item will work with any other application, but it won't work with Suitcase. What happens? Nothing. The button doesn't work.  

Worse still, the problem appears to be some kind of malfunction, as if something is wrong with System Preferences. Most users would be forgiven for searching through "Startup Items" folders, deleting Preference files and chasing other wild geese, because as I said above - nobody expects software developers to over-ride system settings in such a way that it appears the system is malfunctioning. Who would do such a thing!?! Extensis, it seems. 

Solution:
Assuming you haven't deleted Extensis Suitcase and all associated files in a fit of rage...

Launch Suitcase and go to Suitcase > Preferences > General > Application Options, and untick "Open Suitcase automatically when you log in"

It took me 2 hours to figure that out. The odds of me looking at Suitcase's preferences for an answer approached zero, for a couple reasons.

First, every time Suitcase launched, I force-quit it more venomously, so the odds of it even launching were slim.

Second - and more importantly -that's not how the operating system is designed. Applications are subordinate to the operating system, and they do not normally launch coups of this kind. If they did, the entire system would collapse in chaos and no one would be able to troubleshoot any problems. 

When the time comes that we can replace Suitcase with another, better designed application, I expect we will replace it faster than you can say "Quark."

Apple has a series of online video seminars that outline how to use the personal tools that come with every Mac "to create professional looking marketing materials like newsletters, presentations, podcasts, movies, photobooks and web sites."

The tools are all personal - iPhoto, Garageband, iMovie, iWeb, and Keynote - but the application is for small business users. In other words, the seminars show you how to use the tools created for Mom, for small business purposes. The seminars are great, if only to show you what you can do, and give you an idea of how easy it is. Each segment is about 10-15 minutes long, and the series is about an hour long.

The series is done in a TV magazine style, with David Griswold, Founder of Sustainable Harvest coffee company being interviewed by an Apple Rep, and demonstrating how their small company uses the iLife tools. This format makes the videos a lot more watch-able than many tutorial demonstrations which rely solely on images of a computer screen and voice over.

Incidentally, the quality of the videos is astounding. When I launched the first one, I nearly fell off my chair. I suppose we've all become so accustomed to seeing YouTube videos that our expectations are quite low. The videos are very similar to digital TV quality. If I tell QuickTime to display it at double the size, the image is HD (high definition) size and the titles remain crisp and clean, which is pretty amazing, as they start playing within about 2 seconds.

The only down-side is you need to register. There's a "Register" button at the top right of the page.

QuickTime tip:
The videos will launch in QuickTime player. To make them display at twice the size, select "Double Size" from QuickTime's "View" menu. Alternatively, hold the APPLE key and press '2.'

Note: iLife (iPhoto, GarageBand, iTunes, iMovie HD, iDVD, iWeb) is included with every new Mac. It is not included when you buy a new major version of Mac OS X. And if you want to upgrade iLife, you need to buy the box. (About $89 Cdn. £55 UK)

For Meghan,

Have you ever copied styled text from a web page, and found it was all wrong when you pasted it into an email message?

I used to go through this all the time. Either the text is gigantic, or the line spacing is weird, or it becomes invisible because it's white text on a white page. Or I try to copy text from an email message I recieved, and when I paste it into a new message, it's blue. I don't want blue.

To try to fix it, I'd open Mail's text formatting palettes and start changing the colour and size. Which kind of works. But the line spacing issue ends up being impossible to get rid of and infects the whole email message. It would never end well. But now...

There's a simple solution:

1. Copy the styled text from a web page - try the lovely turquoise text above.
2. Place the cursor in your message where you want it to appear.
3. Select, "Paste and Match Style" from the Mail.app's Edit menu.

The keyboard shortcut for "Paste and Match Style" is ALT+SHIFT+APPLE+v.

You may want to use 2 hands. Actually, if you can pull off this manueuver using only one hand, you should get a prize.

This tip also applies to TextEdit and iChat.

New technology has always posed learning challenges. Once technology becomes familiar, it seems obvious and we can't imagine how anyone could not immediately know how to use it. Remember the trouble people had when the book was first introduced?

DocX Converter writes:

In Office 2007 Microsoft introduced a new file format called the Microsoft Open Office XML Format (.docx). This format is not compatible with older versions of Microsoft Word or with alternative operating systems like Linux or Mac OS X. Nor is it compatible with other word processing applications like OpenOffice, Lotus 123, or NeoOffice.

People with Windows may be using Office 2007 already, and may send you files in this format. You won't be able to open them. Fortunately, there are conversion options:

DocX Converter
DocX Converter is a free web service that converts these troublesome files. It also includes a widget for OS X.

For more options, go to Creative Techs:
Convert MS Word 2007 .DOCX files for a Mac

As promised, Apple's official collection of common Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts, available from their support site.

Download Whitewater's collection of common Keyboard Shortcuts. This is a shorter compilation of shortcuts. The file will download to your desktop for printing, future reference, never getting around to actually looking at, etc.

Remember, all the keyboard shortcuts available are listed next to each item in every menu of every application you use. Now that's good design.

What is a keyboard shortcut?
A keyboard shortcut is a combination of two keys (usually) which, when pressed simultaneously, accomplish a task. For example, if you wanted to copy some text, you could select it, and then move the cursor to the "Edit" menu, and select "Copy." Alternatively, you could select the text, and then use a keyboard shortcut to tell your Mac to copy it by holding down the APPLE key and pressing 'c' for copy. My convention for writing the "Copy" keyboard shortcut is "APPLE+c."

Why use keyboard shortcuts?
In a word - speed. While it may only take a second or two to move my mouse to select the "Copy" from the "Edit" menu, it probably takes less than an eighth of a second to accomplish the same thing using the keyboard. And if you are a laptop user like Mom, the time to move the cursor using the track pad on a laptop can get very long. Perhaps up to 4 or 5 seconds. So the gains in speed are even more dramatic.

How can a normal person learn all these arcane commands?

Half the problem is finding out what the keyboard shortcuts are.
Fortunately, the most useful ones are ideally placed: most items in most menus have the keyboard shortcuts listed right beside them. Like so:

Notice the weird looking characters running down the right side of the menu list? Those tell you the keyboard shortcuts for each command. Also notice that that squiggly clover leaf looking icon is also displayed on the APPLE key. Thus, we can see the keyboard shortcut for "Undo Typing" - hold the APPLE key and press the 'z' key. (Incidentally, the Apple key is actually called the "Command" key, but like many people, I find I get the "Command" and "Control" keys mixed up, so I call it the "Apple" key.)

The other half of learning keyboard shortcuts is remembering them.
Considering that knowledge is essentially familiarity, learning keyboard shortcuts is simply a matter of finding some way of forcing yourself to use them. You might try learning one a day. Or you might simply notice you are using the same command repeatedly on a particular task - say, copying and pasting text back and forth from one document to another - and take the opportunity to use the keyboard shortcuts for that task. You'll get the task done quicker and have learned 2 keyboard shortcuts.

I expect you'll also be glad to know that the shortcuts have been designed to make them easier to remember. Copy, for example, is APPLE+c - 'c' for copy. Cut is APPLE+x - the 'x' looks like scissors. Paste is APPLE+v - 'v' looks like the insertion symbol one might use marking up text by hand.

Another benefit: Windows keyboard shortcuts are pretty much the same as on the Mac. Windows shortcuts use the CONTROL key rather than the APPLE key. But otherwise, are pretty much the same, as far as I know.

Not only that, but on the Mac, keyboard shortcuts typically apply across all applications. APPLE+s is Save, no matter what application you are using.

In the next post, I'll give you an extensive list of keyboard shortcuts from Apple, as well as a revised list of the most common commands. So stop mousing around already!

Not sure about a word? Not sure how to spell it? Don't know what it means? Want to find out more? Control-click it, i.e. hold down the CONTROL key and click the word. 

Control-clicking a word will give you option to spell check, use Spotlight to search for the word in all documents on your Mac, search the web with Google, or look up the word in OS X's system-wide Dictionary.

This tip would effectively end the days of leaning across to your colleague and asking them if they know how spell 'naive,' or of reading an article and simply ignoring the words you don't

This is what is known as a disruptive technology - if you don't disrupt your familiar habits and go out of your way to use it, you disrupt your colleagues.

(Go on - select 'disruptive technology' and control-click it to Google what it really means.)