Porque sabemos que lo necesitas

¿Como sacar fotos de tus ventanas?

Tue, 9 Sep 2008 12:46:22 -0400

En nuestro foro oficial resucitó una pregunta muy común en usuarios nuevos de Macs. ¿Cómo sacar una foto de la ventana o pantalla? Hoy este tip es traido a ustedes por nuestros miembros del MUG.

Maria L Vial
Si entras por appliacations/utilitiles, Hay una apliacación que se llama Grab. Ejecuta la aplicación y con eso puedes hacer los screen shot.
Saludos,  
tecnocato
Si tienes prisa, solo basta con Shift + Command + 3... el tres del  lado izquierdo, o sea, Command + # y te toma un retrato de tus pantallas. Si las quieres cortar (crop), abre la(s) foto(s) con Preview, selecciona y haz Crop. Si necesitas algo más sofisticado puedes utilizar Grab (como sugieren aquí) o un programa como Snapz.

Edgar Rodriguez

Command+Shift+4 Lo que hace es que deja tomarle screenshot a algo especifico.

Jesus

Cmd+Ctrl+Shift+4 copia al clipboard para que lo puedas pegar dentro de un documento.
Jesús Ortiz  Sent from my iPod Touch

Javier Lopez

Y en adicion... luego del Cmd+Shift+4... lo sueltas y presionas Space Bar y te da una camarita para que solo retrates la "ventana" que tu desees.
jlo

Resend an Mail Message

Thu, 5 Jun 2008 17:42:10 -0400

Courtesy of newmacuser.com

If anyone has ever asked you to resend an e-mail for any reason her is how you can avoid having to retype the entire message.
Once you have opened Mail.app go to the sent items and select the e-mail you want to resend. Don’t open the message just select it. Now head up to the Message tab on the menu bar and select Send Again or if you are a big Keyboard Shortcut user hit “Shift + Command + D”. A new window will pop up and your original message will be there just like it was just before you hit send. As a matter of good practice you should check to make sure the e-mail address is correct just in case the reason you are resending it is because the person did not get the e-mail. This would also help if you left someone off an e-mail you are sending to a group of people. Just change the”TO:” addresses and send it again.

How Do I Copy My DVD’s to Watch On My Mac and iPhone or iPod?

Thu, 22 May 2008 09:07:15 -0400

By: Mike Smith
Published: Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Categories: HOW DO I...?
Courtesy of myfirstmac.com
So imagine you just went out and bought a new DVD. Or maybe you’ve had your favorite movie on DVD for a while now. You also have an iPhone or a computer you want to put it on. You might think, “What? I can’t just click and drag the DVD to my computer and then sync it with my device?” No you can’t. That doesn’t mean it’s not possible to transfer it to your computer though. There are a couple ways to do it.   One: transfer it from the DVD. Companies like 20th Century Fox and now Lionsgate are now making it possible to just drag the movie from the disc to your computer.   Two: use a process called ripping. Basically what this is, is a program reads the information off the disc and decodes it into a file on your hard drive which can then be compressed to put on your iPod, Apple TV, etc.  Method number one is very easy to learn and very easy to use. However, there aren’t many DVD’s that offer this option yet. The first one that offered what is known as a digital copy was Family Guy: Blue Harvest. You begin by inserting the disc into your computer and open iTunes. It will show up as a new device and there will be a screen asking if you want to transfer this digital copy to your computer. The answer would most likely be yes and you just enter in the code that came with the DVD and it begins to copy. One sync of your iPod or iPhone and its ready to view.  Method number two is a little more difficult but offers more options. The most popular program to use is Handbrake. The most recent version 0.9.2, only works in Leopard on Mac OS X, while version 0.9.1 works in Tiger and Leopard. The application works the best on a Mac because you only need one step. For Windows using Handbrake isn’t the easiest way. There is however a way to do it and I found a nice YouTube video that shows exactly that.   On a Mac what you do is download Handbrake and install it by dragging the application to your application folder. Then, you take your DVD and insert it into the optical drive. Select the DVD from the pop-up menu Handbrake has and click open (if you don’t see anything select Open Source under the File menu). Wait while it searches the disc to find the movie.   After it’s done, is when you can customize how the video will look. If you don’t understand all the stuff located on the bottom, don’t worry. Handbrake comes with over fifteen built-in presets to chose from. Just select the one you want and it will automatically change the settings to that preset to optomize the video. The main ones you’ll want to focus on are iPod High/Low-rez, iPhone, Apple TV, and Normal (for viewing on the Mac). After that just click start (located at the top) and wait while it rips and compresses the movie to the file you want. When that’s done, if it hasn’t already added it to iTunes, do so and then sync your device for watching.
  Some people might look at Handbrake and say, “What are all those big words and numbers do at the bottom?” In a nutshell increase or decrease the quality (and therefore size) of the file. The biggest one of note is the quality section. Here you will find target size (choose how big you want the file) constant bit rate (another way to limit the file size) and constant quality (how good you want the movie to look).   Two other options you might find helpful are under audio and subtitles. The first is adding another audio track. This is new in 0.9.2 (Leopard only) and can only work on devices that allow multiple audio tracks. The iPhone and iPod Touch (with the software upgrade) are such devices whereas other iPods aren’t. The second is subtitles. You can select which subtitles you want in the video but keep in mind that the resulting video has them burned in. It’s not like the audio in that you can choose which one (or none) you want showing in your video once you have it on the device; it is burned into the picture.

Introduction to Apple’s .Mac Services

Mon, 12 May 2008 02:20:27 -0400

By: Craig Alan Williamson
Published: Thursday, December 20, 2007
Categories: BEFORE YOU BUY, GETTING STARTED
Courtesy of myfirstmac.com
.Mac is a package of web-based services that will greatly enhance your overall Mac experience. It is typically Apple –incredibly easy to use and infuriatingly over priced – but while you can find equivalent products that will cater for each of its features (some of which I will tell you about below), none will provide you with such an elegant and fully integrated solution as “dot Mac”.
 So let’s take a look at what .Mac provides you with, and what some of the alternatives might be:
 10 GB of online storage – This is the backbone of the .Mac service, with your allocated 10 GB being distributed across all of the following online capabilities:
Web hosting – Your web site can be published with one click from within Apple’s iWeb application. Your site will then be available at http://web.mac.com/username or at your own domain name (registered elsewhere). Alternative: Go Daddy provides a superb web hosting service that is far more flexible than .Mac’s, albeit without iWeb integration and requiring more technical know-how.
 Web Gallery – Your photos can be published on the Internet with one click from within iPhoto, and your movies can be published with one click from within iMovie. A ‘Web Gallery’ page is created for you automatically at http://gallery.mac.com/username and you can also use embed your creations in your iWeb site. Alternative: Flickr will host your photos for free and can also be accessed from within iPhoto. YouTube is the place to publish your movies for free and can also be accessed directly from iMovie.
 E-mail account – You will receive your own e-mail address that can be accessed via your preferred e-mail application or through the web from anywhere in the world. Alternative: Google Mail is a free service with a very similar set of features.
 Backup – This application will backup your essential documents, photos, music etc. to a secure area of your online storage space, and can be scheduled to occur at regular intervals. Alternative: Jungle Disk is an extremely good value service that can provide equivalent functionality without the 10 GB limit of .Mac.
 iDisk – An online area of storage that you can access from anywhere in the world, including the ability to share files with others via a public folder. Alternative: Jungle Disk also provides this functionality.
 Tools for managing multiple Macs – Besides the 10 GB storage features above, .Mac also provides a couple of services to assist people with multiple Mac computers:
Back to My Mac – This tool allows you to connect to one Mac from another (both running Mac OS X Leopard) e.g. back to your home Mac from your work Mac. The remote Mac works exactly as if you were using its own keyboard and mouse, giving you full access to all of its files and applications. Alternative: The free version of LogMeIn provides most of the functionality you are likely to need.
 Sync – This service can synchronise your bookmarks, calendars, contacts, dashboard widgets, dock items, keychains, mail accounts, mail rules, mail signatures, smart mailboxes, notes, and preferences across multiple Macs. Alternative: Most of these items can be backed up manually, but I have yet to find an alternative that will synchronise them automatically across multiple Macs.
 A misfit feature of .Mac – .Mac has one more feature which doesn’t fit into either of the categories above:
.Mac Groups – As a paid-up .Mac member you are allowed to setup .Mac groups. These are online communities with group e-mail, shared calendars, and group web sites. Members of your groups do not have to be full members of .Mac, but must sign up for a free .Mac ID. Alternative: Yahoo Groups provides all of these features, and so much more, completely free.
 So what will all of this .Mac goodness actually cost you? Initially you can sign up for a free 60-day trial to test out all of the features (see links in the Dig Deeper section). Afterwards, Apple will charge you $100 (£70 in the UK) for an individual 12 month subscription, or $180 (£120 in the UK) for a 12 month family pack including one 10 GB master account and four 2.5 GB sub-accounts. The 10 GB storage can be upgrade to 20 GB for $50/£35 or 30 GB for $100/£70. One hot tip is to shop for your .Mac subscription on eBay where individual membership can be found as low as $70 and family packs for as little as $90.
 But is .Mac actually worth the price when free solutions are available for most of its features? Well, if you only really want one or two of the features of .Mac then you will certainly save money by looking at the alternatives. Also, if your needs are rather advanced – e.g. you want complex HTML editing capabilities for your website, or you want to backup your entire 60 GB music collection – then .Mac will probably come up short and you should again look elsewhere. But if you think that several of the .Mac features will be essential to you, and if ease of use is of prime importance, then .Mac simply becomes a must-have package. Once you’ve had .Mac you’ll never go back.
 What are your thoughts on .Mac? Are you getting your money's worth? Have you found better alternatives? Let us know in the MFM Forum thread linked below!
 Craig Alan Williamson wrote his first novel on a PC, but you shouldn’t hold that against him. You can download an exclusive free preview of the rather funny ‘A Foreign Education’ from CraigAlanWilliamson.com.

Quick Tip: Use the Keyboard to Open Finder Items

Mon, 7 Apr 2008 10:52:46 -0400

Tips & Tricks
Contrary to popular belief, in the finder hitting the Enter does not open the file. The Enter key will allow you to change the name of the file though. To open the file or folder hit the Command and down arrow at the same time.
Courtesy of newmacuser.com

Don’t I Need Microsoft Office to Open That?

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 09:29:39 -0400

Don't I Need Microsoft Office to Open That?
By: Wally El-Hitamy for MyfirstMac.com

One of the things about owning a PC was there always seemed to be a program on my computer that would open Microsoft Word documents or spreadsheets. The computer either had MS Office or the trimmed down MS Works.
So what happens when you switch over to a Mac and try to open a recipe from a friend that is in Word document format(.doc) or a spreadsheet(.xls) from your financial planner? Chances are that the MS Office 2004 for Mac Test Drive will open up and take you through the free trial sign up screen. This may give you peace of mind for a little while, but what about after that 30 day trial? You will then be met by a screen nagging you to purchase the software.   What do you do then? Do you have to use MS Office to open Word documents and Excel spreadsheets? The answer is no. There are actually several free alternatives to Microsoft Office that you can get on the web that will import, edit, and exchange files with Microsoft Office. One option is the free NeoOffice software suite.   NeoOffice includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, database, and drawing program. It is based on the free, community built OpenOffice. The difference between the two is that NeoOffice is built specifically for the Mac operating system. To keep up with the costs of development and hosting of NeoOffice, they ask for a small donation for each download, but you can download without donating. (Updated)  Just like MS Word, NeoOffice Writer will undoubtedly be the most used program in the NeoOffice suite. Those of you used to MS Word may think that a free product such as NeoOffice would lack all the bells and whistles of a paid for product. Well, You'll be surprised to find out NeoOffice has many of the same features as Word in a familiar look and feel. The editing and formatting functions are located across the top in fully customizable toolbars. Writer contains the obligatory spell check and a very easy tables setup feature. One area that NeoOffice may lag behind in compared to MS Word is clip art. Writer has a gallery feature but it lacks the numerous stock images included in MS Office.

Two things that may come up when using NeoOffice: When opening Word, Excel, or PowerPoint documents, you may want to check the formatting to make sure no adjustments are needed. Although most files stay formatted correctly, it is wise to make a quick scan to be sure nothing is out of place.  If you are going to be sending a file to someone, you will probably want to send it the correct MS Office format for that application. This option can be selected from the Save As... menu. The default format is OpenDocument. Just choose Microsoft 97/2000/XP from the drop down list instead.  Extra points: To make NeoOffice become the default application when opening Office files, download RCDefaultApp. This program runs in the System Preferences pane and will allow you to choose the the default application for various file types and file extensions.  Leaving Microsoft Behind Uninstalling MS Office 2004 for Mac is easy. Find the Office 2004 for Mac Trial folder by searching for "Test Drive" in Spotlight and and then select "Remove Office."  NeoOffice is one of many options available to Mac users that are leaving MS Office behind. Many of the Office suite options are available to Windows users as well and deserve a look. They can be found in the Dig Deeper section below.   Did this NeoOffice overview give you the confidence to quit the Microsoft habit? Give it shot since you've really got nothing to lose. The price sure is right!   Have you found any other solutions you want to share? Let us know in the Comments section below!
Find more information

NeoOffice iWork Apple's productivity suite. iWork '08 includes new Numbers spreadsheet program. Google Docs & Spreadsheets Online only office suite. Zoho Office Very well done office suite and more. MS Office:mac 2004. MS Office 2008 Delayed until January 2008
Where Did the Word Processor Go? from SwitchingtoMac

Mac Backups Made Easy: Part 1

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:39:10 -0400

Backup

Over the last year or so of running New Mac User the question I am most often asked is “What is the best way to backup my system?” I have tried to give just about everyone who asked advice on what will work for them. Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. I firmly believe that until you lose some very important data backing up is not a priority for you. This was the case for me. Right after my wife and I had our second child, Maddie, we were in the waiting room for her one month check-up, and something happened to my macbook. It would not come out of sleep mode and it would not restart. The drive just would not mount at all. Needless to say I had not backed up my computer since we had made it home from the hospital and the only copy of all the pictures we had taken were on that hard drive. I tried everything, but nothing worked on the drive because there was something physically wrong with the drive and it would not spin up. Not to fear I was able to recover the pictures from the camera card, but everything else was gone, and for the week in between losing the drive and figuring out I was able to get them back from the SD card I was really sweating it. If I just had a backup procedure I would not have spent the hours I should have been sleeping trying to figure out how to get my pictures back.
Normally when someone asks me “Do I need to back up my computer?” my first response to them is also a question, “Can you afford to lose all of your data and for how long can you be without a computer?” Most of the time the answer to the question is the same: I can’t live without “insert your most valuable thing here” and then they tell me that they really can’t be without the computer for one reason or another.
If that answer is close to how you would answer than you really need to make sure that you have a redundant back up solution. Most people say that it would cost way too much. I tell them that I could them a redundant system for under $175.00. They say that sounds good to them.
To get started on this system you will first need a drive that is big enough. The bare minimum for my solution is two times the size of your internal hard drive. For example, if you have a 160 gig internal then you will need a 320 gig external. I have found a great drive from Western digital on Amazon for 132.00 (get it here Western Digital 500 gig My Book)
After you have the hard drive, you will need to fire up Disk Utility from your utilities folder inside Applications. Make sure the new external drive is plugged in and turned on. If you use a dual format drive like the Western Digital 500 gig My Book, which supports FireWire,USB, and e-SATA, then you will want to use the FireWire feature on your Mac. Select the Drive from the menu on the left and click on the partition tab in the middle of the main section. Here you will want to create 2 partitions (more if you want to use the drive for more than just this backup application). The first partition you will want to make about 1 gig more than your internal hard drive. So for the 160 gig internal hard drive we talked about above you would make the first partition 161 gig and the second would be the rest of the space on the drive. If you are good at labeling the drive I would name the first partition Super-Duper and the second Time Machine.
We are now done with the Hardware setup. In the next part we will discuss what you will be doing with the first partition.

The Ultimate Switcher Guide

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:18:18 -0400

Ultimate Switcher Guide: Windows PC to Mac Keyboard Shortcuts
By: Chuck Konfrst for MyfirstMac.com

If you make heavy use of keyboard shortcuts, one of the biggest challenges is learning them on the Mac. What was once ingrained in your memory now can leave you feeling frustrated and bitter that you ever switched. Don't throw your Mac out the window yet! Thankfully, in many cases it’s simply shifting your pinky a couple of keys to the right.
If you feel new to the keyboard shortcut thing, we are talking about how you can involke commands usually found in the your computer's menus by pressing a combination of keys on the keyboard instead. Many people find this way of working much faster and efficient both on Macs and PCs. The trouble is, the key combinations are slightly different from Mac to PC. Find out more about Mac shortcuts in our MFM article, Mastering Keyboard Shortcuts on the Mac.
To keep things simple, we’ll stick to the standard full-size keyboards that ship with most Windows machines and Macs. We’ll also skip specialized keys that may control things like brightness, iTunes and such.
Let’s start with the keys. Windows and Mac keyboards sport nearly all the same keys although placement and naming might be slightly different.
However, Macs add the “Command” (⌘) key (also known as “Apple” or “Open-Apple”) and Windows the “Windows” key (also known as “Start”). Here is the (very) basic breakdown:

 For the most part, a Control + Key in Windows translates to a Command + Key in Mac OS. This is the fundamental conceptual shift to understand. Instead of hitting that Control key in the corner with your pinky, try to use your thumb to nail the Command key on the Mac keyboard. Some even think the thumb on Command provides a better "pivot" to reach most of the keyboard with one hand.
When looking for a shortcut, look in the menus for the keyboard equivalents (listed to the right of the menu item in orange below) or search in the Help menu for “Keyboard Shortcuts”

Here is a list of commonly-used Windows keyboard shortcuts and their Mac equivalents.
System Shortcuts

MS Office / iWork

Internet Explorer / Safari Shortcuts

 Okay, that was a long list. Remember, start out by trying to swap Command for Control in your memorized shortcuts from PCs. Also, if you've been trying and trying and still want to smash your Mac, before going back to Windows try altering the shortcuts to make them what you want them to be. Some applications let your "remap" the shortcuts by using that ability in the program, and Mac OS X lets you do that to some extent in the Keyboard & Mouse preference pane. Open it and click on Keyboard shortcuts to see what you can do. Don't forget to scroll to the bottom to add application specific shortcuts.
Have you struggled with this issue before? Do you have some tips to share or questions about it? What about important shortcuts that aren't in the tables? Let us know in the Comments section below!

Find more information
Apple keyboards and keyboard mapping in Windows XP
Keyboard shortcuts for Windows
Mac 101: Make your own keyboard shortcut - TUAW
How Apple Keyboards Lost A Logo & Windows PCs Gained One  Wikipedia on the Command Key  Wikipedia on the Windows Key

Use Spaces More Efficiently

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 09:56:44 -0400

System Preferences
With Spaces, Mac users can finally enjoy what Linux users have had for years: virtual desktops. However, Leopards implementation has a neat trick that I’ve yet to see in any Linux distro. You can now perform “window dragging” between the desktops without having to use the multi-pane view (ie. 4 screen view). Simply click on a window as though you were going to drag it. While continuing to hold down the mouse button, press control+<an arrow key> to move that window to another space. Then let go when you are done. Isn’t that a much easier way to manage window clutter?