In Depth: Britain vs the US: Who is the real tech titan?
The Americans are sometimes quick to take credit for other people's work. For example, if you believe what you see in Hollywood films, the US invented the Enigma machine that changed the course of World War II.
The truth is that much of the technology we assume is American really isn't, and many US inventions wouldn't have been possible without foreign innovation.
But who is the real titan? Is the US the land of the future, or does Britannia rule the microwaves? There's only one way to find out: fight!
The computer
Had Charles Babbage ever built his Analytical Engine, the UK would be the clear winner in this field. He designed the forerunner of today's machines, the first programmable computer, back in 1837.
However, it wasn't until the 1930s that his work turned into real machines when Harvard's Howard Aiken took inspiration from Babbage and developed the Harvard Mark I.
MIT had created the Differential Analyzer – an analogue calculator – a few years earlier, but as it wasn't a general-purpose machine – its skills started and ended with arithmetic – we'd give the Harvard Mark I the credit for being the first general purpose computer.
Then again, if it weren't for us Brits we'd still be using computers to do pretty simple things. Alan Turing, a Cambridge academic, wrote a seminal paper in 1936 ('On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem') that set out the concepts of a universal computing machine.
On balance, then, we'll call this one a draw: the Americans may have done the building work, but the British were the architects. The digital computer was definitely a British invention, though: Colossus, the code-breaking computer at Bletchley Park, went into service in 1943, and it would be another three years before the US equivalent – ENIAC – was powered up.
The personal computer
This field is a USA victory all the way. William Shockley, co-inventor of the transistor, started Shockley Semiconductor Laboratories in 1956. A year later, his top people jumped ship to form Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation.
Fairchild and Texas Instruments were the Intel and AMD of their day – indeed, Intel was headed by former Fairchild inventor Robert Noyce. Intel invented the microprocessor and started selling it to all comers in 1971, and by the early 1970s hobbyists were happily banging together computers in their garages.
America didn't invent the microcomputer – French firm R2E developed the Micral, the first off-the-shelf model in 1972 – but US firm Micro Instrumentation Telemetry System (MITS) popularised it with the Altair.
The Altair led to a hobby group called the Homebrew Computer Club that boasted members including Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. These two Steves went on to form Apple, the company that created the consumer computing market.
This sector would eventually be dominated by copies and descendents of IBM's 1981 PC. Operating systems and software Programming languages to control computers were largely US inventions (FORTRAN came from IBM, COBOL from the team headed by US mathematician Grace Hopper and ALGOL – the forerunner to Pascal – was a transatlantic effort).
The first widely used operating system, OS/360, was another IBM effort. The first desktop operating system was also American: CP/M, which ran on early Intel based machines, was the creation of Gary Kildall from Digital Research. The operating system that would eventually supplant it – MS-DOS – was created in Seattle by Tim Paterson.
America can claim the graphical user interface too. The Apple Lisa (1982) took the work of Xerox PARC and brought it to the mass market. Users controlled their Lisas using another US invention: the mouse (which was invented in 1968 by Doug Englebart of Stanford Research Institute).
Many of the applications we take for granted are also American ideas. The first word processor, Electric Pencil, was the creation of American software developer Michael Shrayer; the first PC spreadsheet, VisiCalc, was created by Philadelphia's Dan Bricklin; and the first commercial web browser, Mosaic, came from the US National Center for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA).
Even though the US didn't invent the web that Mosaic ended up browsing, it did invent the technologies that made it accessible.
Networks and the internet
The computer network is an American invention: George Stiblitz at Bell Laboratories spent the period from 1940 to 1946 developing the first machines to support multiple users and work remotely via telephone lines.
The ultimate network – the internet – was largely a US creation too, driven by the US Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The first ARPANET link was between the University of California and the Stanford Research Institute, and this tech became the core of the internet.
The protocol for internet communication, TCP/IP, came from Robert Kahn of DARPA and Vint Cerf of Stanford University, and the move from closed, separate networks to connected inter-networks was driven by the US military and government agencies.
However, without the World Wide Web, the internet would almost certainly have remained a tool for boffins and geeks, so Briton Tim Berners-Lee is almost entirely responsible for the internet becoming an everyday technology.
He came up with Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML), Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).
The British can't claim credit for the internet's other killer app, however: email was invented by New Yorker Ray Tomlinson on the ARPANET system.
Smartphones, iPods and peripherals
The British invented the telephone – sort of – but the mobile phone was a US invention. Mobile phone cells were proposed by Bell Labs engineers in 1947, while AT&T Labs researchers Richard H Frenkiel and Joel S Engel developed the technology to build such cells in the '60s.
Britain can take credit for the iPhone, though: Jonathan Ive, who designs many of Apple's products, originally hails from Chingford – and that means we can claim the iPod too. In fact, the UK can claim all digital music players: British inventor Kane Kramer filed patents for his digital audio player in 1979 and was showing it off at exhibitions in 1986.
However, while the British invented TV (John Logie Baird created the first working television system in 1924) the Americans can justifiably claim to have invented both the computer monitor (Allen B Du Mont's work at the De Forest Radio Company in New Jersey led to the first commercial CRT tubes) and the flatscreen display (George Heilmeier, who developed the first practical LCD display).
As Vice President of Texas Instruments in the 1980s, Heilmeier also played a part in the invention of the Digital Signal Processor (DSP), which you'll find in music players, mobile phones, home entertainment kit and medical equipment.
And the winner is…
Who is the real tech titan? By any reasonable judgement, it has to be the US. From the computer to the iPod the British may have come up with some bright ideas, but it was the inspiration and perspiration of American engineers that made those ideas into the products we actually use every day.
But before our transatlantic cousins jump up and down to do that 'USA! USA!' thing that they're so fond of, it's worth mentioning one other thing Britain came up with: America.
We didn't build it, but if it weren't for the arrogant and unreasonable behaviour of the British when we ran the place, there would have been no Declaration of Independence, no US Constitution (which was inspired in part by the Mayflower Compact, a set of rules drawn up in 1620 by British settlers) and no Bill of Rights, the documents that inform the can-do attitude that typifies the USA.
Let's face it: without the British to kick against, there would be no United States of America, and we very much doubt that the US would be the technology giant it is today.
So while it wasn't exactly deliberate, that means that every single high-tech innovation is traceable back to us. Don't believe us? Just look at some other parts of the world.
The Americans kicked us out, became the United States and invented almost everything. The Belgians didn't. And what have they come up with lately?
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Guide: How to turn an old laptop into a digital photo frame
The world is waking up and coming to terms with the horrible new truth: laptops grow old and die.
Their ageing, creaking and cracking frames, which were once so admired by the passing technointelligentsia, are now just a constant and painful reminder of their outdated and embarrassingly limited abilities.
But, just like the geriatric PC Format team, they're not utterly good-for-nothing. An ageing or semi-decrepit laptop can certainly be put to a number of goodly tasks, it's just a case of ascertaining what's still working.
We've had a seven-year-old Dell laptop rattling around the place and, while we could probably get آ£50 or so for it on Ebay, we could also put it to good use in many other interesting ways.
It has a working screen and innards; it can be a bit temperamental with its networking but is otherwise in pretty good nick. The plan is to remove the screen, reverse this and mount it inverted in a 17x13-inch chunky frame along with the original chassis – this will enable us to re-use it for other things later on.
This device can be assembled in any number of ways: you can use screws, hot glue, wooden batons or even cut metal sheets into suitable corner sections. It's actually possible to disassemble the laptop and mount just the motherboard within the frame, without any drives or the chassis. This will save on space and weight, and the old parts could then be sold or re-used.
What you will need
An old laptop
Hot glue gun
'Chunky' picture frame
Wooden batons
Jewellers screwdrivers
1. Before you start, make sure the frame is more than big enough – widescreen laptops will cause their own size issues. Also avoid running screens upside down or sideways, as most are designed to be viewed from one direction only.
2. Disassemble your laptop! Every model is different, so you're on your own here.
3. We popped off a top panel to reveal the screen's main mounting points.
4. Most keyboards can be popped out pretty easily, though a few screws are normal. Once out of the way, the display's connection is revealed.
5. At this point we can remove the connection and the entire display can be separated. If possible, free up any spare ribbon, but be very, very careful not to damage it!
6. Position everything within the frame and make sure it'll fit and the ribbon will reach. If it doesn't, you'll need to remove the chassis.
7. We're keeping things simple: a couple of blocks and hot glue will keep the screen in position. We're using the screen's own mounts to secure it.
8. A baton screwed in place will keep the chassis secure; as this sits beyond the frame, another will be needed at the top. We're also going to strap it all securely in place.
9. If you're going to run this off a flash drive, you'll need to transfer your Windows licence plus set up suitable slideshow software such as Irfanview.
10. The final masterpiece! If you need to control the frame, using a wireless keyboard and mouse makes the most sense.
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Non-alphabet web addresses for China et al
From next year, internet users in the roughly 50 per cent of the world that doesn't use the Roman alphabet will no longer have to struggle with the ABCs of domain names after web authorities voted to allow other scripts.
The latest board meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) voted to permit so-called Internationalized Domain Names in writing systems such as Japanese, Chinese and Hebrew.
Applications coming soon
The immediate upshot of the decision is that ICANN will start taking applications on 16 November for suffixes that will replace the likes of .co.uk and .org in countries that don't use the alphabet.
After that, most likely early next year, internet users in those countries will no longer have to rely on search engines to find what they want or typing in mostly meaningless – to them - strings of characters in alien scripts.
Billions of new users
ICANN president and CEO Rod Beckstrom explained the significance of the move, saying that it would "help to bring the first of billions more people online – people who never use Roman characters in their daily lives."
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In Depth: 101 really useful tips for Mac beginners
No matter how long you've been using a Mac for there's always more to learn and useful tips to discover.
Whether it's realising that you can find a folder much quicker by using Finder's Go To Folder option or that you can turn iCal into a nifty little radio alarm clock that will play your favourite tunes to wake you up.
It's these hidden gems that make owning a Mac such a glorious experience. So, here we've gathered together what we think are the best-ever 101 Mac hints and tips to help you get more from OS X as well as all the applications you use on a daily basis such as Mail, Safari and, of course, Finder.
On each page we've selected a particular tip that's deserving of our Top Tip award, so look out for them.
So, without further ado, let's get started.
01. Change Desktop Background
Right-click the Desktop and choose Change Desktop Background to choose from the images supplied by Apple.
If you'd rather use an image of your own, your iPhoto Albums are listed too, or click the + sign below to browse for an image in any of the common file formats, including Photoshop PSD as well as the more obvious JPEG, PNG, TIFF and GIF.
Use the Change Picture option to make the background change over time; you get a smooth transition between images. All the images you save into the selected folder will be used. Your choices are previewed live on the Desktop.
02. Change window background
You can also change the background of a window. In any Finder window, press Cmd+1 to view as icons, then Cmd+J to show View Options.
At the foot of the options panel, Background is set to White by default. Switch to Color and click the swatch that appears, to pick a colour, or choose Picture and click Select… to browse for an image.
By default, this takes you to Library > Desktop Pictures, so you can choose from the same images provided as Desktop Backgrounds, but you can navigate to any image file. The image won't scale or tile, so ideally pick one as big as your screen resolution.
03. Tweak screen furniture
Open System Preferences (the cogwheel icon in your Dock) and click Appearance to change aspects of your Mac's user interface.
The first option just lets you choose between blue or grey for buttons, tick boxes and drop-down menus.
Change the Highlight Color, used when selecting text, if you don't find the default pale blue very clear. You can alter the way scroll bars work, handy if you're accustomed to an earlier version of Mac OS X or Windows.
Use smooth scrolling means that when you click within a scroll bar to jump up or down, the window will roll to that point rather than switching instantly.
04. Adjust Exposأ© controls
Exposأ© helps you find the right window among all the applications you may have open. It's activated by shortcut keys and/or moving the mouse pointer to corners of the screen – control this in the Exposأ© & Spaces pane of System Preferences.
Exposأ© was originally assigned to keys F9 to F11, but newer Apple keyboards use F3. Press this to reduce all open windows side by side, then click one or press F3 to cancel.
Hold Cmd with F3 to sweep all windows away, revealing the Desktop. Hold Ctrl to see only windows belonging to the current app. Add the Shift key to do the same but slower.
05. Label tool bar
If you can't remember what all those toolbar icons actually do, help is at hand. Hover over one to pop up a tip describing it, or right-click the toolbar and choose Icon & Text to have each button labelled.
06. Choose Desktop items
Occasionally you will find some options that you might have expected to find in System Preferences are actually tucked away in Finder's Preferences.
These are accessed from the Finder menu (every Mac application normally has its Preferences on this menu, next to the Apple menu, which always bears the name of the app) or by pressing Cmd+,.
In the General pane, you can opt to show icons for any connected network servers on the Desktop, or declutter your Desktop by removing the icons that normally represent your hard disk and any CDs, DVDs and iPods (note that these can still be accessed from any Finder window).
07. Configure Spaces
For those of you who like to multitask Mac OS X's incredibly handy Spaces feature gives you several Desktops to work on.
Hold down the Ctrl key and press the cursor keys to move between Spaces, which is shown on-screen as a neat grid of six boxes. If you wish you can have more or fewer Spaces: go the Exposأ© & Spaces pane of System Preferences and click the Spaces tab, then click to add or remove rows and columns until you're satisfied.
Here you can also preset which space an application will launch in. However, note that different windows belonging to the same application can be situated in different Spaces.
Click a window's title bar and hold the mouse button while pressing Ctrl and a cursor key to move it over to another Spaces box.
08. Customise Dock shortcuts
Items at the right of the Dock, such as the Applications and Downloads folders, are represented by the icon of the last item added. For a more descriptive generic icon, right-click the item and switch from Stack to Folder.
When you click one of these items, its contents pop out in a fan if there are only a few files and folders: click one to open it, or drag it to a folder to move it.
If there's more to show, you get a grid of icons filling as much of the screen as is needed. You can force either of these arrangements or choose a plain list instead, also on the right-click menu.
09. Repair preference files
A common cause of odd behaviour in Mac OS X is corrupted preference files. Try repairing them. Open Disk Utility (in Applications > Utilities), then select your main hard disk in the list on the left.
In the First Aid tab of the main pane on the right, click Repair Disk Permissions. If you're having serious issues with the system, you can also click Verify Disk to check your hard disk for problems, which again can often be fixed if found.
10. Customise key shortcuts
Many of the keyboard shortcuts built into Mac OS X are listed in the Keyboard & Mouse pane of System Preferences, under Keyboard Shortcuts. You can also change them here to whatever you'd like.
11. Open Preferences quickly
Hold Option and press any of the function keys that show a system function symbol to open the relevant pane of System Preferences. For example, Option+F1 or F2 (brightness) opens the Display preferences pane.
12. Change alert sound
In the Sound pane of System Preferences, you can choose which sound is played when the system gives you an alert. Or use any sound file of your choice: full instructions are available here.
13. Activate function keys
The F keys on a Mac don't work as function keys by default; they have dedicated purposes, such as adjusting volume. To use them as function keys, hold the fn key. You can reverse this in System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard.
14. Stop the squeeze
Apple's Mighty Mouse has pads either side that, when squeezed, activate Button 4, which triggers Exposأ©. Many users find they do this by accident. Turn it off in System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Mouse.
15. Customise the Dock
By default, the Dock pops up from the foot of the screen when you move the mouse there. Change its size, position and behaviour in System Preferences > Dock. Magnification refers to the way icons get bigger as you mouse over them.
16. Show thumbnail icons
Every file and folder has its own icon in Finder. For most files it's usually a generic icon indicating its file type, but for pictures it can be a more useful thumbnail image.
You can turn this on or off by pressing Cmd+J in a Finder window, and this will show its View Options.
These vary for each of the four views: Icons, List, Column or Cover Flow; switch between them by holding Cmd and pressing the number keys 1-4 (you can still do this with the options pane open). For each view, tick Show icon preview. To apply this to all windows, click Use as Defaults.
17. Custom windows
To change what appears in the Sidebar at the left of every Finder window – for example, to remove things you don't use – choose Preferences from the Finder menu and click the Sidebar tab.
18. Add to Dock
You can add anything to your Dock. Drag program icons onto the left-hand end, or if a program is already running, right-click it in the Dock and choose Keep in Dock. Drag commonly used files or folders onto the right-hand end.
19. Customise window toolbar
The toolbar at the top of each Finder window shows a few handy options, but can include many more. Right-click it and choose Customize Toolbar to add buttons. Cmd+drag to remove them.
20. Create custom icons
To create your own icon for a file or folder, open any image in the Preview app. Use the Selection tool to draw around the area you want, then press Cmd+C to copy it.
Now go to Finder, select the file or folder you want to customise, and press Cmd+I (Get Info). Click the small icon in the top-left corner, so that it shows a blue outline, then press Cmd+V to paste your copied selection.
The only catch is that the icon lacks a mask, so you won't be able to click the thumbnail to select the item, you have to click on its name instead.
21. Drag and drop
You can drag and drop almost anything between applications and Finder, including text, pictures and more. Often you'll need to go to one place to get an item, then move to another location or application to drop it.
There are many ways to get to where you want while still holding the mouse button to keep hold of your dragged item.
For example, move to one of the screen corners that activates Exposأ© (see tip 4) to reveal the Desktop, so you can drop the item there, or pick an application window to drop it into. Or press Cmd+Tab to switch between applications.
22. Force quit
One problem with the Dock is that it's easy to click a program by mistake and start it launching. To cancel it, hold Option while right-clicking its icon and choose Force Quit. This also works when a program has crashed.
23. Cover Flow folders
Mac OS X Leopard can display files and folders using the Cover Flow effect as first seen in iTunes: to do this just press Cmd+4 in any Finder window.
Riffle through a folder using the Mighty Mouse wheel, or if you prefer to use keys, press the Right arrow or Down arrow key to bring up the next item, Left arrow or Right arrow to see the previous one, Option+Down arrow for the last item or Option+Up arrow for the first.
For a power-user setup, grab below the slider to adjust the Cover Flow area to about half the depth of the window. When you select a folder, it's highlighted below; press Option+Right arrow arrow to reveal its contents, or Option+Down arrow to move inside this folder.
24. Use Spotlight
The Spotlight search tool is an important feature of Mac OS X. Click on located at the top-right of the screen for a quick search.
You can set a key shortcut for this in the Spotlight pane of System Preferences; the default is Cmd+ [Spacebar].
When results appear, press Return to open the first one (Top Hit) immediately, or move down the list with the cursor keys to select another. Press Return to open it or Cmd+Return to show its location in a Finder window. Select Show All to see a full listing of the all the results.
25. Extend Spotlight
The great thing about Spotlight is that it finds exactly what you're looking for within the contents of your files, not just in their names.
To do this, it has to be able to read the information in whatever type of file it's looking at, and inevitably it can't do this for every type of file created by every application. Fortunately, there are free third-party plug-ins for many more.
Find them listed here. for example, Ziplight lets you search zip archives, and Google Importer adds Google website results to your Spotlight searches.
26. Fix blind spots
Spotlight is extremely useful, but can be slightly temperamental. If it fails to index a particular folder, so that its contents don't show up in searches, you can fix this using in Terminal, accessible from Applications > Utilities.
At the Terminal command line, type mdimport followed by a space, then drag a file or folder from Finder onto the Terminal window to add its path, and press Return. (In versions of Mac OS X before 10.5 Leopard, use mdimport -f instead.)
If this is all too techie for you, try adding the folder to Spotlight's Privacy list (see tip 35), then removing it.
27. Go to folder
If you want to open up a particular folder and know exactly where it is located – for example, Utilities inside Applications inside Macintosh HD – you may find it a lot quicker to type out its path than to click through a series of folders.
In Finder, press Cmd+Shift+G (or, alternatively, choose Go to Folder... from the Go menu), then type a slash to start from your Macintosh HD followed by the folder(s) you want to go into: for example, /Applications/ Utilities.
To see the contents of your Macintosh HD, enter a slash by itself.
28. Folder shortcuts
The Sidebar at the left of Finder windows is handy: drag any folder into this to make it instantly accessible. You can add files too.
However, with a lot of items it gets cumbersome. An alternative is to make a new folder somewhere and fill it with aliases of regularly used items. (Cmd+L makes an alias.) Drag this folder onto the right-hand end of your Dock.
You can now click this to show its contents, then click an item to open it, or drag it into the Open dialog box in any application to select it without wading through folders.
29. Application associations
When you double-click a file, it opens in the app it's associated with, normally the one that created it. To open it in a different app, drag the file onto a program icon in the Dock icon (or in Applications). The icon will dim if the file is compatible.
Alternatively, right-click the file and choose Open With… to select from a list of possible apps. To make a file open with a particular app every time, press Cmd+I to show its Info, then use the drop-down menu under Open With… to choose an app.
Click Change All to make all files of this kind open with this app.
30. Spring-loaded folders
When you need to drag an item into a particular folder, you don't have to go to the trouble of opening that folder first.
Instead, drag the item over the icon for the hard disk, device or folder that contains the location you're looking for, and wait for it to 'spring' open, revealing its contents in a window. Continue until you get to where you want.
If you go into the wrong folder, just drag away from it to pop out again. To make an icon spring open immediately, press [Spacebar]. You can adjust the delay in Finder > Preferences > General.
31. Sort files
To change how items are sorted in a Finder window, click any of the column titles (Name, Date Modified, Size or Kind) to order them by that criterion; click it again to reverse the order from top to bottom.
32. Arrange icons
In icon view, a Finder window may be a bit of a jumble. Press Cmd+Ctrl+1 to arrange the icons neatly by name. To sort in other ways, use numbers 2 to 6, or go to Arrange By on the View menu.
33. Finder views
In any Finder window, items are shown either as icons, a list, in columns (to fit hundreds of files into one window) or with Cover Flow. Switch between these by pressing Cmd+1, 2, 3 or 4.
34. Select multiple items
In the List or Column view, you can select a whole run of files or folders by clicking on the first one and then Shift-clicking on the last.
In Icon view, you can drag a box around several icons to select them, Cmd-click to select multiple individual items, or, alternatively, use Cmd+A to select all.
35. Refine Spotlight
You can tell Spotlight to ignore a location by going to the Spotlight pane in System Preferences, click Privacy, and click the + sign. Then it won't waste its time indexing a drive that you only use for backups.
36. Open multiple files
If, for any reason, you need to work on a number of files, many applications will enable you to open them all at once rather than having to load them one by one.
Select multiple files in Finder (see tip 34), then double-click any one of them, or drag them onto a program icon, to open them all.
Alternatively, you can launch an application, go to File > Open, then use the Shift and Cmd keys (see tip 34, again) to select multiple files within the Open dialog box before clicking Open to load them all up.
37. Force new windows
When you double-click a folder in a Finder window, the same window displays its contents. Hold Cmd to open a new window instead.
To reverse this, go to Finder > Preferences > General and tick Always open folders in a new window.
38. Choose a window
Click and hold a program icon in the Dock to pop up a list of active windows in that application, then select a window to go to it. This lets you bring up one window while keeping another app visible beside it.
39. Search again
At the foot of the Sidebar, at the left of any Finder window, you can click to see the results of all the Spotlight searches you performed earlier today, yesterday or in the past week.
40. Launch via Spotlight
To run a program that isn't in your Dock, don't waste time navigating to the Applications folder. Just start typing the app's name into Spotlight. It'll usually appear as the Top Hit; press Return to launch it.
41. Multiple print
If you have a number of files of the same kind that you need to print, there's a super-quick method. First, go to System Preferences and click Print & Fax. Make sure the printer you want to use is listed on the left, with a green idle light to show it's ready.
Then select it as the Default Printer on the right, with Default Paper set to the correct size. In Finder, select several files belonging to the same application, such as TextEdit or Microsoft Word, and go to File > Print.
The files open automatically in that app, and its Print function (with default settings) is used to output them.
42. Save as PDF
Mac OS X has the built-in ability to create PDF files – a great way to save a finished document that looks exactly as you intended when other users receive it. All they need to open it is the free Adobe Reader application, already installed on most Macs and PCs.
To create a PDF from any app, go to File > Print (or press Cmd+P), then click the PDF drop-down menu in the bottom left-hand corner. Choose Save as PDF to create a file, or Mail as PDF to email it immediately.
You can also use this function to preview how a document will look when printed: choose Open PDF in Preview.
43. Quick Look
A surprisingly large number of users haven't cottoned on to Leopard's Quick Look feature, which is a massive timesaver when you need to check the content of a number of files, or view a folder full of pictures without faffing around with iPhoto.
Just select any file in the Finder and press Cmd+Y to preview its content in a neat pop-up window. This doesn't work with every file type, but most text and graphics files are supported.
It also works with multiple items selected: use the Left arrow and Right arrow keys to move between them. Alternatively, press Cmd+ Option+Y to view them in a slideshow.
44. Screen Capture
When you want a really quick and simple way to show someone else whatever you're looking at on-screen, the answer is a screen grab. Also known as a screen capture or screenshot, this is basically just an image of your screen, or part of it, exactly as it looks to you at that moment.
To capture the whole screen, press Cmd+Shift+3, or press Cmd+Shift+4 to draw around an area.
Either way, the result will be stored as Picture 1 on your Desktop, with the number going up each time. Alternatively, add the Ctrl key to copy the grab to the clipboard, so you can paste it straight into an email.
45. Automator
Automator enables you to program almost any task without being a programmer. For example, launch it (from Applications) and choose Photos & Images > Get content from > my Mac. Use image files selected in Finder now. Click Choose.
Scroll down the middle pane to New PDF Contact Sheet, and drag this into the right pane, below the existing box. Choose somewhere to save a PDF. Go to File > Save As, set File Format to Application, name your app and save it.
In Finder, select image files and drag them onto your app's icon. A contact sheet of them in PDF format is created in the location you specify.
46. Mac OS X Services
Every application menu – the one next to the Apple menu that shows the name of the active program - gives access to the Services submenu. Services work with Cocoa apps, including all Apple software and many others but not Microsoft apps.
Look here for a variety of handy functions, including looking up words in Mac OS X's built-in dictionary and importing screenshots (only for programs that can handle images). Third-party add-ons are also available.
Some of the most useful, including automatic text formatting and calculations, can be downloaded free of charge from here.
47. Say it loud
In any Cocoa application, select some text, rightclick and choose Speech > Start Speaking. This feature is extremely helpful to users with sight problems.
If you wish, you can change the voice in System Preferences > System > Speech > System Voice.
48. Text clippings
Having selected some text in any app, click on it (if the mouse pointer still shows a text cursor instead of an arrow, pause for a moment) then drag it to the Desktop or into any folder to save it as a clipping. This can later be dragged into any text editor.
If it appears instead as a picture clipping, as it may when dragged from Word, drag it first onto the TextEdit program icon, then press Cmd+A and drag it out again. Annoyingly, clippings can't be viewed using QuickView.
For a visible record, drag your clipping onto the Stickies program icon. Stickies is installed by default in the Applications folder.
49. Activity monitor
Is your Mac running particularly slowly? If it is, it could be because something is hogging your memory or processor. Open Activity Monitor (in Applications > Utilities) and look for processes using a significant percentage of CPU or a lot of Real Memory.
If you're not using the application responsible (listed under Process Name), close some or all of its windows, or quit it. For example, you may find your web browser is using a lot of CPU time unnecessarily because you've left dozens of windows open.
If the system is being eaten by some mystery process that does not appear to be linked to an application, try restarting your Mac.
50. Activate Firewall
In Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.1 or later, the built-in firewall is turned off by default, removing protection against incoming connections. That's not as risky as it sounds, because a more comprehensive firewall runs constantly in the background.
For extra protection, open System Preferences, click the Security icon, click the Firewall tab, and change the setting from Allow all incoming connections to Set access for specific services and applications.
When a non-Apple program tries to use an incoming internet connection, you'll be asked whether you want to allow it; you only need do this once for each app. Learn more here.
51. Close all
You probably already know that you can press Cmd+W to close a window. But did you know you can press Cmd+Option+W to close every window in the current application or in Finder?
Alternatively, Option+click any window's Close button (the red one at the top left).
52. Minimise all
Closing windows is fine as long as you won't want them back immediately. If you want to have the window open but out of the way you can minimise it by pressing Cmd+M, or to get many, minimise all windows with Cmd+Option+M. You'll find your minimised windows at the right of the Dock.
53. Eject delay
In Mac OS X 10.4.9 and higher, the Eject key on the keyboard has a slight delay: you have to hold it down to pop a disc out. Now that you know this, you can stop hitting it repeatedly while looking confused!
54. More Automator
Automator Workflows comprise a series of Actions that you find in the middle pane and arrange in order in the right pane. As long as there are Actions for the things you want to do, you should be able to see how to put them together.
Find more Actions here, and even more Actions and Workflows by searching the web for 'automator mac os x'. For extra help go to Automator's Help menu or visit here.
55. Launch Front Row
To launch Front Row, Mac OS X's media centre for music, press Cmd+Esc. Navigate menus with the Up and Down keys, press [Spacebar] to select or Esc to go back, and move through photos or songs with Left and Right keys.
56. Timed screen grab
Another way to take a screen grab (see tip 44) is to launch Preview and go to File > Grab. Use the Timed Screen option to capture from apps that don't let you activate a screen grab while using them.
57. Instant Google
In Cocoa applications (all Apple apps and many others), select any word or phrase, right-click it and choose Search in Google to do exactly that. This always opens Safari, not your default web browser, to show the results.
58. Edit code
Mac OS X's built-in TextEdit program is handy both as a word processor and as a basic editor for things like HTML and CSS code. To open a code file for editing, tick Ignore rich text commands in the Open dialog box.
59. Non-linear selections
In TextEdit or Microsoft Word, you can select any rectangular area, as opposed to continuous text, by holding Option while you drag. Great for copying or restyling one column in a tabbed table.
60. Key shortcuts revealed
Ever thought, 'I wonder if there's a Mac OS X keyboard shortcut to…?' If there is, you'll probably find it listed in Apple's guide to shortcuts.
61. Calculator choices
You should never have to reach for a desk calculator while using your Mac. Dashboard has a simple calculator that you can access at any time along with the rest of your widgets.
For more advanced sums, find Calculator in the Applications folder; from the View menu, switch it to Scientific or Programmer mode (the latter is a calculator for programmers, not a programmable calculator).
Or try using Spotlight as a quick calculator. Enter an equation, such as 48000/52 (forty-eight thousand divided by fifty-two) or 2*pi+5 (two times pi plus factorial 5) and the answer appears below. It won't do powers or roots, though.
62. File labels
In Finder, you can give any file or folder a coloured label, either via the right-click menu or from the File menu. To give these labels names, go to Finder > Preferences > Labels.
To make your labels smarter, create Smart Folders. Press Cmd+Shift+F, change Name to Other… and choose File label.
Click a label, then click Save, name your search to match your label and tick Add to Sidebar. Appearing at the foot of the Sidebar in any Finder window, this item will show all files with that label, anywhere on your Mac, with one click.
63. Folder Actions
With Folder Actions, dropping a file into a folder sets off an automatic process. For example, all images could be converted to JPEG.
Turn on Folder Actions by right-clicking any folder and selecting Enable Folder Actions. Now make a new folder (Cmd+Shift+N), right-click it and choose Configure Folder Actions.
Click the + sign and select your folder. When asked to choose a script, pick Image – Duplicate as JPEG.scpt and click Attach. That's it: drop in a file to see. You can click Edit Script to tweak the script; to go further you'll need to learn some AppleScript.
64. Find large files
When you need to clear space on your hard disk, it's quicker to hundreds of small ones. In Finder, press Cmd+Shift+F, change Name to Other… and pick Size, change equals to is greater than, and try 100 MB.
Click Kind to sort the results, then scroll through to spot unwanted behemoths. Another option is to search for file types that are commonly unwanted, such as the disk images used to install applications (.dmg).
Change Name to Kind, select Other, then drag any file of the type you want to look for onto the outlined box to find others.
65. Sort your music
iTunes has smart folders too. If you have a mix of purchased iTunes tracks, which until recently were copy-protected, and other music, it's hard to know which are which.
Press Cmd+Option+N for a new Smart Playlist and set it to Kind and Does not contain and Protected.
66. Set up Mail
You can use Apple's Mail application with almost any email account. Both POP and IMAP are supported (the former is more common with basic email services, the latter makes it easier to access your mail from multiple devices).
Instructions for Google Mail (Gmail) are here, alternatively if you want to use your Google Mail as IMAP rather than POP, try this page.
If you have a MobileMe account but use other addresses as well, it's simplest to forward them on to it.
In Google Mail, for example, go to Settings > Forwarding and POP/IMAP, and enter your me.com address under Forward a copy of incoming mail to.
67. Dashboard widgets
Mac OS X's Dashboard should be the first place to look for your handy everyday tools. By default, it's activated by clicking the Mighty Mouse wheel or pressing F4; it also has an icon in the Dock.
The supplied Dashboard widgets cover a variety of tasks, from showing the weather to converting measurements and currencies. Click the + at the bottom left to check out the widgets not visible by default. (This also shows a Close box on each visible widget.)
The first widget, called Widgets, shows a list of all your widgets as well as links to thousands more online, all free.
68. Smart Mailboxes
Manage your messages in Mail using Smart Mailboxes. Rather than dragging files into these, you define which files will appear in them based on search criteria. Go to Mailbox > New Smart Mailbox and give your mailbox a name.
Use the drop-down menus below to filter the messages you want to include: for example, to show all messages older than a week that you haven't yet replied to, set Contains messages that match all of the following conditions: Date received and is not in the last and 7 Days and Message was not Replied to.
69. Monitor Dashboard
Does Dashboard waste system resources? It doesn't use the processor (CPU) except when open, but a lot of widgets could take up a significant amount of memory (RAM). In Activity Monitor (see tip 49), check Dashboard Client processes.
70. Multiple calendars
iCal can show multiple calendars for home, work and so on, plus other people's online calendars that you subscribe to via Calendar > Subscribe. Make a new calendar using Edit > New Calendar. Tick the calendars of whose events you want to see.
71. Calendar syncing
You can sync calendars with an iPhone or iPod via iTunes whenever you connect the iPod to your Mac. To sync on the move, you must have a MobileMe account and tick Synchronize my calendars in the General pane of iCal's Preferences.
72. Musical alarms
Turn iCal into a radio alarm clock by setting it to play your favourite music track as a reminder. When editing an event, set Alarm to Open file, switch it from iCal to Other… and select a file from your Music folder.
73. Instant reminder
Mail recognises any reference to a date in an email and highlights it when you pass the mouse over it. Click the drop-down menu (triangle button) to add an iCal event on this date, linked to the message.
74. Photos in Mail
To email photos, you don't have to juggle iPhoto and Mail. In Mail, go to Windows > Photo Browser. This opens a box listing all your albums in iPhoto, plus any photos taken using the Photo Booth webcam utility.
75. Hide bad shots
Got a lot of pictures in iPhoto? Weed out the duff ones. Glance through, click on any that look poor and hit Cmd+L (we like to think this stands for 'loser'). They'll all stay hidden until you press Cmd+Shift+H.
76. Sync Notes
The iPhone's Notes sync via iTunes to the Notes function in the Mail app if you tick this option in the Info tab when you select your iPhone in iTunes. They can't be synced wirelessly via MobileMe.
77. Use iCal for lists
Dashboard's Stickies widget is handy for jotting things down, but if you're using it as a to-do list, kick the habit: it's much more effective to manage your tasks in iCal, which can remind you when they're due.
78. Mail rules
Since they don't move messages, Smart Mailboxes won't declutter your inbox. Sort your mail too using Mail Rules. Use Mailbox > New Mailbox to make a mailbox for each category you want. (Set Location to MobileMe if you also want to see this as a folder there.)
Your mailboxes appear in the left pane. Now go to Mail > Preferences and pick Rules. Click Add Rule, give your rule a name, and set its criteria: for example, to file all messages from the Guardian in your Guardian mailbox, set If any of the following conditions are met: From and Contains and Guardian – Perform the following actions: Move Message to mailbox: Guardian.
79. Plan with iCal
In iCal, you've got a comprehensive time manager. To add an appointment, click a date in the minicalendar at the bottom left, then select Day or Week view in the main pane and double-click a time slot.
Type a title and press Return; to enter details, double-click the event box or press Cmd+E. Set an alarm if required. To show who's involved, click Add Attendees and start typing names, or press Cmd+Option+A to open the Address Panel and drag names across.
To send invitations, click Send at the bottom right: full details are instantly emailed to them all, with an iCal attachment that they can open in iCal or other calendar software.
80. To Do items
Mail also handles to-do items. Create one by ticking the To Do icon in the toolbar. Also, when you need to do something as detailed in an email, Mail lets you preserve that link.
Within the message you're reading, click and drag to select the text that describes what you need reminding about, such as 'We really need that presentation by the 18th'.
Right-click the highlighted text and choose New To Do. A copy of the text appears, so you can edit it; click the arrow on the left to add a due date.
81. Use Safari 4
If you haven't yet upgraded to Safari 4, now's the time. (Get the free upgrade via Software Update – see tip 96.) Apart from being faster, it has great new features.
Press Cmd+Shift+1 for Top Sites, a visual display of your most-visited web pages; click Edit to drag sites around, pin them into place (so they don't change with your browsing habits) or remove them.
A star shows which sites have changed since you visited. Go to History > Show All History to view your history and bookmarks with Cover Flow, which lets you flip through sites to find the one you want at a glance.
82. Safari shortcuts
Get to know Safari's key shortcuts to speed up your web browsing. As in other applications, hold Cmd and press the [ or ] keys (to the left of Return on an Apple keyboard) to go Left or right arrow.
Add Shift to switch between tabs. You can also use Cmd+Shift with Left or Right to switch tabs, but, be warned, this fails when a text entry box is active.
To cycle between the open windows, hold Cmd and press ' (next to the left Shift key on an Apple keyboard); add Shift to cycle the opposite way. You'll find that his also works in other applications.
83. Get MobileMe
MobileMe (me.com) is Apple's 'cloud' service, which gives you a me.com email address for which messages are stored on a central server and synced between your Mac(s), iPhone or iPod touch, and even any Windows PCs.
Contacts, calendars and to-do lists are also synced, and you get an online iDisk with up to 20GB of free storage. All in all, it's definitely worth the آ£59 a year that you have to pay for it.
However, even if you don't have MobileMe, you can do many of the same things with Google's free mail and calendar tools, but not quite as simply. Find out more by visiting here and here.
84. Push syncings
MobileMe can sync everything between Macs, iPhones and iPod touches. Set what's synced in the MobileMe pane of System Preferences.
Along with received emails, changes made on your Mac are 'pushed' to your iPhone (as long as you have cell or Wi-Fi reception): for example, when you start typing a To Do item in Mail, the Mail Activity pane at the bottom left springs to life, and the Apple Mail To Do folder in your iPhone's Mail app updates instantly.
If this doesn't happen, go to your iPhone's Settings, choose Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data, and check Push is turned on.
85. History preference
In Safari > Preferences > General, choose how long web history. Set Remove history items to Manually to keep them forever, but keep an eye on the history items' list getting out of control.
86. What a To Do
MobileMe has a few slightly awkward aspects. To Do items are a case in point.
On your iPhone, To Do items can be found only in Mail, not in Calendar, and you'll only see those that you created in the Mail application on your Mac and assigned to MobileMe rather than On My Mac (choose by selecting one of these in the left pane before creating a To Do).
When you log in to MobileMe (me.com) in a web browser, however, it's the opposite. Only Calendar shows To Dos, and only those created in iCal and assigned to On My Mac. To create a reminder visible everywhere, make it an event in a synced calendar.
87. Retrieve recent sites
If you were working in Safari but had to quit, and want to find all the same pages you were looking at, go to History > Reopen All Windows From Last Session. For the clumsy, there's also Reopen Last Closed Window.
88. History Search
In Safari 4, when you know you saw something on a site but forget where, type it into the History Search field in Top Sites. Like Spotlight in Finder, this looks right through each page you've visited to find the content.
89. Export images
Drag images from Safari into TextEdit, or other document-editing apps. Or drag them into Mail (or Microsoft Entourage) to attach it to a new email.
90. Access FTP servers
If you need to access an FTP server, perhaps to exchange large files with other users or to upload to a web server, you can do this from Finder.
Press Cmd+K and enter the URL, such as ftp://ftp.myservername.com/myfolder. A box will then appear asking for a username and password, which you should have been given. If the server accepts anonymous (guest) logins, you're generally expected to enter ftp or anonymous for the username and your email address for the password.
Once you're in, the server's contents will appear in a window like any folder, and you can drag items in and out or access it from Open and Save dialog boxes.
91. Link options
When you're clicking on a link in Safari, hold down Cmd to make it open in a new tab or window. You can even choose in Safari > Preferences > Tabs, whether the new tab or window appears in front of or behind the current one.
92. Recent searches
Safari saves the last 10 searches you entered in the Google search box at the top right; click the magnifying glass to see them, then press Clear Recent Searches if you want to clear the list.
93. Automatic notification
Among the scripts supplied for Folder Actions is one to pop up a notification when something is added to a folder. This is ideal if other users are dropping files for your attention.
Remarkably, it even works on folders within your iDisk, which is stored on Apple's servers rather than within your Mac. Using Configure Folder Actions (as in tip 63), select your iDisk Public folder and attach the Action as follows: add - new item alert.scpt.
When anyone adds a file to this folder, an alert will pop up on your Mac asking if you'd like to view the added items. Note that it may take a minute or two for this to happen.
94. Publish calendars
Should you want to share an iCal calendar online, you can right-click it in the left pane and then click Publish. If you click Send Mail this will tell other users where to find it.
Either tick Publish Changes Automatically, or right-click and choose Refresh whenever you want to update it. Go > iDisk > Other User's Public Folder, in Finder.
95. Microsoft Exchange email
You may already be familiar with 'push' email, especially if you have a Microsoft Exchange server at work. You can get your work email pushed to your iPhone or iPod touch by setting up an Exchange ActiveSync account, as explained here.
However, keep in mind that you can't have it both ways: mail can only be synced from MobileMe or from Exchange, not both. It may make more sense to auto-forward your work email to your MobileMe account, or vice versa.
You can sync contacts and calendars from both systems at once, but the two sets of data stay separate.
96. Update software
Keep the Mac OS and Apple applications updated online to ensure you have the latest features, bug fixes and security protection. In System Preferences, click Software Update and make sure Check for updates is ticked and set it to no less often than Weekly.
Tick Download important updates automatically – this means any new patches will be downloaded from the internet as soon as they're available, but Software Update will pop up and ask you before installing them on your Mac, which will then be quick.
Adobe and Microsoft programs also have automatic update services.
97. Import addresses
Drag selected text from any editing app onto Safari's program icon. If the clipping begins with http://, Safari will go to this URL. If not, it'll do a Google search for the text. (With other browsers, only the URL will work.)
98. Export addresses
Drag any link or image from a web page onto TextEdit's program icon – shown in the Dock by default – to copy its web address (URL) into a blank document. Or drag onto an existing document window to paste it in.
99. Export phone numbers
If you use Skype, select a phone number in any app and drag it onto the Skype icon to dial. This can be used to quickly dial a number found on a website.
100. Public iDisk
If you have MobileMe, your iDisk is a great way to exchange files with others. Go to iDisk and you'll find it contains a Public folder, which others can access; the rest of your iDisk is private.
Go to System Preferences > MobileMe and click the iDisk tab. Under Your iDisk Public Folder, choose whether users can write files here or only read files you put in. You can also set a password.
Tell other users the web address shown here (http://public.me.com/[yourname]) and they can access your iDisk in a web browser. If they're Mac users, they can also use Go > iDisk > Other User's Public Folder, in Finder.
101. Create Smart Folders
In essence, Smart Folders are like Spotlight searches that you can save and repeat later. They're like folders in the sense that you are In Finder, create a Smart Folder by going to File > New Smart Folder or pressing Ctrl+Option+N.
This brings up the familiar Spotlight search window. Enter a word or phrase into the box at the top right, and/or click the round + button to add more criteria, such as Kind or Last opened date. Click Save and give your Smart Folder a name.
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New Intel chipset may be crashing iPhone sync
A peculiar set of circumstances currently drawing attention on an Apple discussion website suggests that iPhone users running Windows 7 may be unable to sync their phones if their PC uses one of Intel's newest chipsets.
The hardware in question is the P55, which was released in September and can be found in motherboards from MSI, Gigabyte and Asus.
Apple keeping quiet
According to the Apple forum, the P55 appears to be combining with Windows 7 and iTunes 9 to create an error that prevents iPhone synchronisation.
While Microsoft and Intel are looking into the problem, Apple has yet to respond to questions about the possible cause and a remedy for affected iPhone owners.
New iMac too?
So far, the issue is of relatively minor interest to the tech community, but the fact that the P55 is likely to be in the new 27-inch iMacs due later this month from Apple should focus a few minds on cracking the problem.
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Illegal downloads drive online music sales
After years of bluster and misguided policy from government and the music industry alike, a change in the attitude to file-sharing may be on the horizon thanks to a new survey that shows illegal downloaders actually spend more on music then their straight-as-a-die counterparts.
The Demos poll of 1,000 people between 16 and 50 found that illegal downloaders on average spend آ£77 a year on music, whereas the rest fork out just آ£44.
Discovery mechanism
Analyst Mark Mulligan of Forrester Research took the opportunity to highlight a truth policy makers seem unable or unwilling to grasp: "The people who file-share are the ones who are interested in music. They use file-sharing as a discovery mechanism."
Whether or not the Demos findings will have any impact on Peter Mandelson's plans to introduce a US style 'three strikes and you're out' approach to discouraging illegal downloading remains to be seen.
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In-car atmosphere scrubber runs on water
Car owners who are either a bit on the smelly side or who have problems with hay fever might want to check out one of the more unusual gadgets to run off a cigarette lighter socket.
Japanese firm Seiwa's Airwasher fits in a standard car cup holder and uses the lighter power to suck in all the air in the car and scrub it clean with the aid of a water filter.
Pollen too
Costing just آ¥2,980 (آ£20), the FS13 Airwasher is available only in Japan, but Seiwa does offer to handle international orders by email, although we've no idea of the price on that front yet.
As well as lighting up blue when powered up, the Airwasher's 120ml of water absorbs grime from the air and pollen particles. When it becomes saturated with filth after about 24 hours of operation, the water can be replaced from any tap or bottle.
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