Appletell

So you just switched from a PC to a Mac and you’re completely lost on what to do.  Fortunately, there is plenty of options available to learn about your new machine.  The best part?  Many of these options are free!  Here they are:

1) Apple Store Sessions:  If you head on over to you nearest Apple Store’s Calendar of Events, you will find a whole schedule full of free sessions they offer.  These sessions are made to help you get to know your computer and the software on it and are usually one hour in length.  A small price to pay for how helpful and smart some of those Apple employees are if you ask me.

2) Podcasts:  Podcasts are a great way to learn about anything, not just Macs.  However, if you want to use these free audio/video services to help you, I recommend it.  Apple even offers it’s Quick Tip of the Week (note: iTunes link) video podcast.  The advice that comes from most of these feeds is extremely high quality.

3) Application Help Menus:  In almost every application on your Mac there is a “Help” menu item.  Filled with FAQs, these are a great place to read how to do a certain task.  Just type in what you are looking for and you will most likely find a few options to help you.  I, to this day, still find myself using these sometimes.

4) Google!! Google is your friend.  Always.  Anything that is on the internet is on Google.  Just type in your question and you will instantly have numerous ways to go about answering it.

5) The Community:  Join a social networking site and make some friends.  Your bound to find someone who knows how to do what you are trying to.  The internet is a great place to meet new people and get advice from them.

Macworld has posted a great tip for users of the latest Safari 3.1 in Leopard. If you double-click in an empty space in the tab bar, Safari will create a new empty tab - it’s that simple. Prior to 3.1, you would have to use a third-party plugin like Saft for this to work - but in 3.1 it is included. This is a very useful trick that will save you time creating new tabs. I personally like using the keyboard shortcut: Command+T for creating new tabs, as it works in Firefox too, and is very similar on Windows (Control+T). Of course, for this trick to work, you’ll need to have the tab bar visible; you can do this by going to View>Show Tab Bar. Safari will now remember that you have the tab bar visible, even after you quit Safari. To hide it, just go to View>Hide Tab Bar.

Via [Macworld]

A common problem with the iPhone keyboard is that the main screen that consists of all the alphabetical letters has no period. Instead you have to click a separate button to access a separate keyboard which has the period and other punctuation keys on it. Then when you are finished clicking the period button you can click back to the regular keyboard, or hit the space key.

This process is less than ideal for people typing lots of sentences on the iPhone. David Pogue from the New York Times has discovered an easier way to hit the period key. What you must do is hold down your finger on the “.?123” key and the keyboards will change. Then, with your finger still down, slide your finger over to the period key, and then release your finger. A period will be inserted in your text and you will be back to the regular keyboard. Simple, yet powerful!

Though this all would’ve been prevented if apple had added one in the first place, I guess we’ll have to wait and see when/if Apple releases a firmware update for the iPhone.

Read [TUAW]