MacinSpot

When purchasing and Mac, think about getting free from all Microsoft products, including Office. Try the iWorks suite, which is cheaper than Office. You may get a bunch of extra features with Excel for creating macros and performing complex math formulas, but if you just use Excel for basic stuff, like creating budget sheets, keeping up with expense reports and so on, you will be fine with Numbers. Other than that, you should have all you need and at a cheaper price.

For this article I will show you how to create a Pages document and save it in a Microsoft Word format. The same export feature that I will show you is the same for Keynote and Numbers as well. Once you know how to export to Microsoft Office format on one program, just apply the same basics to the other applications.

So to start, open up pages and create a blank document.

Once open, type what you want and save it the usual way in the standard Pages format. When you have finally finished or you are ready to send the document to a fellow Windows user(or another Mac user stuck on Microsoft Office) for editing, go to the File menu and select export.

A dialogue box will pop up with a few options across the top. You can even save your document in a PDF form. For purposes of this article, we will choose the Word option.

Click next at the bottom right and decide what you want to name this document as well as where you would like to save it to.

I chose the desktop to make things easy, but I always suggest saving your documents in the documents folder located in your home folder. Click export and the file will be exported to the proper Microsoft Word format.

Remember, this same technique applies to Numbers as well as Keynote. So you can save in Powerpoint or Excel formats. All three applications also let you save to PDF format for your Adobe crazy friends and coworkers. This article was written using iWorks ‘08. I am sure the feature is similar in ‘09, but I am not sure about previous versions.

Mac OS X is great but sometimes, just like Windows, it flakes out and you need to quit some tasks that look like they have taken off towards Never Never Land. Mac OS X is smart and can actually recognize when an application is losing it. Since applications are running independently and don’t really rely on the operating system as much as Windows programs do, you can still manage to open a menu or even another application. In some cases you will never know an application stops responding until you come back to that application and try to do something with it. In this case let me show you how to end it.

If you click and hold on the icon in the dock you will find that this menu pops up:

If this menu does indeed pop up, you are in good shape. Where it says quit at the bottom of the menu, if the application is not responding, this will change to “Force Quit.” If you are unable to access this menu try going to the Apple Menu and scrolling down to force quit. Alternatively you can hit command+alt+escape to get this same box:

You can, from here, select the application you wish to force quit, then click relaunch to try and restart the application. If things seem to be going a little more berzerk than that, and you want to restart but something is timing you out, preventing your restart. Open the Apple menu and hold down the shift key. You will see the force quit menu item turn into “Force Quit Finder” if you are in the Finder. Holding down the shift key while making that selection will force quit which ever application you are in.

Select this, then restart your computer. Everything should be back to normal. It is a good idea to restart your computer every couple of weeks at least. This is a good habit to be in.

Finder is provides a way to get around on your computer. This is what you can use to navigate through your existing files and folders. Apple has made Finder super easy to use and it is the one application on your dock that you can’t really quit. The icon looks like this(located by default on the far left side of the dock):

When you click this icon two things will happen, if you are in another program, you will notice at the very top on the menu bar, “Finder” will appear indicating you are now using Finder:

and a new window will pop up similar to this:

Whatever you were doing before you clicked the Finder icon will not be jeopardized in anyway shape or form.

As you can see across the top of the window, there are four buttons grouped together:

These will change the way you view icons throughout Finder. The one on the far left is a darker gray indicating that it is the current view, which is to view the contents of the current folder by icons. If we hit the next one over, we can view the contents of this folder in a list view:

The next one over to the right is by columns:

This is handy and I tend to like this view if I am moving back and forth between folders a lot. If you click the very top folder, “Applications,” you will notice that the list of applications show up in the second column over:

The last view type is called “Cover Flow” which is new to Leopard. This basically gives you a preview of the contents within each file.

You can quickly scroll through images and movies with this view to find what you are looking for by using the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard. Alternatively, to change the view you can click on the “View” menu and click on one of the View as choices at the top of the menu.

You will notice at the top in the middle of the next picture, a gear icon with an arrow pointed downward.

This is an action menu. You can create a new folder or label files, or copy and paste files from this menu. This menu will even let you delete files by moving them to the trash.

You will have to select a file if you wish to manipulate it, such as moving it to the trash or copying before hitting the gear menu. This menu can be handy sometimes though.

You will also notice at the bottom of the screen shots above, there is what is called a “Path Bar.” Look at the window below:

If you notice at the bottom of this window it says “Leopard > Applications” and all this is doing is showing me where on the system I am. To activate this “Path Bar” go up to the View menu on the menu bar at the very top and click “Show Path Bar.”

Also in this menu you will notice “Customize Toolbar…”

If you select this option, you will get a window that pops down much like this:

You can drag what you want on the toolbar by clicking and holding down. I added the “New Folder” and “Path” buttons to my menu bar as well as changing at the very bottom, “Icon Only” to “Icon and Text.” I click done and my changes were applied:

Now instead of having to use the action menu to create a new folder, I can just click the new icon I added.

One last thing before I finish up. The Finder has what is called a Home folder for you to work out of. This is a place for you to store all of your stuff and it is divided up for you to keep your stuff organized.

On the side bar under places you will find an icon, possibly with your username next to it, that you can click on and it will bring you to the list you see in the first column. You will see already created folders for you to use such as, Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Library, Movies, Music, Pictures, Public, and Sites. The other few folders you see in my Home folder I have created myself. Some are pretty self explanatory, like the Desktop folder, this is all the items that are on your desktop. Anything you save to the desktop will be stored here. To keep your desktop clean though, you might try saving your pictures in the pictures folder, you music in the music folder and so on. If you point FireFox and Safari to download files items to the Downloads folder then you won’t have to worry about filling up your desktop with stuff you have downloaded. Leopard comes with a stack on the right hand side of the dock next to the trash bin called, downloads, this stack points to that folder. Public, and Sites I wouldn’t worry too much about. Public is a way to share files and folders with other users and Sites is used to store websites offline. Also, you may be asking what the Library folder is. You really shouldn’t need to use that folder. This is where applications store preferences for you. This way, if there are multiple users using the computer, all of which have their own user account, they can have their own preferences without interfering with one another. The Mail application is a prime example of this. Your Mail gets saved in this Library folder. If someone else uses this computer with their own username and password, they can setup Mac Mail with their own preferences.

The Home folder is a great organizational tool set. Use it and you may find a clutter free desktop awaits you. I hope this information has been helpful. Though some of this does not apply to Tiger, I am posting this article in both as much of it does pertain to Tiger. Just remember that Tiger does not have Cover Flow, nor does it have Stacks.

Sometimes a little more security if needed than what the computer was originally setup for. When you first get your Mac and setup your user account, you will notice that it asks you to setup a password. If you restart the computer however after setting up the password and finishing the new computer setup, you will also notice that your computer automatically logs in for you. This is because, by default the Mac only asks for you password for installations, such as updating your Mac from the Software Update selection in the Apple menu, or installing anything that may change a system file. This is nice, but I like to keep my computer secure only because I am dealing with client info and sometimes my own financial stuff. I have made a few changes to help with security and I will show you what I did.

Open up your system preferences, Apple menu/System Preferences, and click on “Security.”

You will see across the top of the next window, “General”, “FileVault”, and “Firewall”. You will probably start on the General tab. The other two are pretty sweet too, but we won’t concentrate on those today.

First and foremost, I require a password to wake the computer from sleep or screen saver. This means, when you shut your lid to your MacBook or leave your computer and come back to a screen saver, it will ask you for your password in order to get back in. I have a MacBook Pro, so I shut the lid every time I leave it. I have also disabled automatic login. You have to remember, even if you have your computer ask for a password after returning from sleep or screen saver, all you have to do is restart the system and if automatic login is setup, then you don’t need a password.

I also require a password to change system preferences. I work with a lot of geeks and I am sure if I didn’t require this that I would come back to settings I just don’t want. See the lock in the bottom left corner of the window above. This will automatically lock when you are done making changes and the next time any changes need to be made, click this lock to unlock the preferences. Generally, you will setup your preferences once, and not really have to deal with them again. So you probably won’t mind entering a password every now and again to change these, as you won’t be doing it often.

I do not have my computer forcefully log out after so many minutes. This can force close anything you have open and can frustrate you sometimes. I simply do not use this. It has many downsides and I just don’t need my computer logged out automatically when I am not using it.

Securing virtual memory is good. I didn’t know what this was so I had to look it up. Basically, when you type anything, including passwords, it is temporarily stored in memory even if you never asked to save it. This information stored in memory could possibly be accessed through another file on your machine. Securing virtual memory encrpyts the data in this file. It is not needed, but I use it. This can slow down your computer a little bit, but if you have a newer Mac I wouldn’t worry about performance lag too much as you have plenty of processor and ram for this operation.

Last, I disabled the remote control infrared receiver. If you do this, the little white remote that comes with your computer and lets you play songs or movies or whatever, will not work. This disables the use of the receiver the computer uses to receive signals from this remote. I disabled it because I never use it.

Just a little more secure now. I hope this helps!

Yesterday I installed iWorks 08 on my MacBook and decided I didn’t need Office 2008 for Mac so I removed it. Keynote opens up PowerPoint presentations. Pages opens up Word documents. Numbers opens up Excel documents. I used Entourage, but I switch from that to Mac Mail and I think it does everything I need. iCal does the whole calendar thing and of course you have the Address Book. So I ask myself why I installed it to begin with. The only answer I can come up with is, I’m really not sure. Let’s remove it. It is super easy.

The “Remove Office” utility is located in the Applications folder.

Or you can follow the path below:

When you double click the “Remove Office” icon, this utility will search for installations off Office on your Mac. When the search is finished it will tell you how many versions it found right underneath the blue status bar in the middle. Click continue.

On the next screen, the versions found by the previous search will be listed. You can check the boxes associated with the installations you would like to remove. After checking the box or boxes, click continue.

Office is actually just moved to the trash by the uninstaller utility…I know I know, Microsoft is useless and can’t just remove it. Seriously though, thats what we get for installing Microsoft on a Mac.

So right+click on your trash bin, or open a Finder window by clicking on the Finder smiley face on the dock, then click the Finder menu in the upper left and select empty trash.

This may take a second, as there is lots to empty after removing Office.