40Tech » Tips

How to Take Screenshots With Your Mac

Evan Kline — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:00:00 +0000

You’ve got your new Mac, and want to take a screenshot. Where’d that Print Screen key go? Things work a bit differently on the Mac. You could go with a third party solution, such as Skitch or Littlesnapper. Or, you could use your Mac’s built in ability to take screenshots. There are three different ways to take a screenshot on your Mac, by holding down key combinations. All screenshots go to your desktop by default.

COMMAND – SHIFT – 3

This takes a screenshot of your entire screen. In fact, it is instantaneous, so you might not even know it worked.

COMMAND – SHIFT – 4

Your cursor changes to crosshairs, and you can then take a screenshot of whatever area you select.

COMMAND – SHIFT – 4, THEN HIT SPACEBAR

Your cursor changes to a camera, and you can then take a screenshot of the dock, the menu bar, a single open menu, the desktop, or any open window. Whatever you hover over will become the target of the screenshot, and turn blue.

That’s all there is to it. If you’d rather have a screenshot go to your clipboard instead of to the desktop, then add the CONTROL key to each of the above methods. So, for example, COMMAND-CONTROL-SHIFT-4 will let you select an area of the screen to send to your clipboard.

If you’d prefer a free app that comes with your Mac, you can also try out Grab, which is located in your Applications/Utilities folder.

What’s your favorite method for taking a screenshot on your Mac?

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How to Change the Default Email Client and Web Browser on Your Mac

Evan Kline — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 02:00:00 +0000

As I continue my now year-old journey as a Mac user, I’ve blogged about a few tips that I’ve stumbled upon, such as how to drag text onto your desktop and change it into a text note, how to reveal the dock and menu bar when using full screen apps in Lion, and how to add folders to the Finder sidebar. Many of these tips are probably “Duh!” moments to seasoned Mac users, but for those of us who come from the Windows world, they aren’t so obvious. It’s time to add another simple but important one to the list – how to change your Mac’s default email client and web browser.

Windows users are accustomed to going to a centralized place to set default programs. On a Mac, to set your default email client and web browser, it’s a bit different. Instead of a system setting pane, you go to Safari settings and the Mail app settings (Safari > Preferences, or Mail > Preferences from your menu bar). In each preference pane, the setting to change the default app can be found in the “General” tab.

The ability to change the app was important to me. While I find the Mail app to be decent (Sparrow is my favorite, though), I ‘ve decided that Safari needs to be taken out behind the house and shot. I tried to use it as my default browser for about a month, and hated it the entire time. I now use Chrome on my iMac, but I use Firefox on my Macbook Air, due largely to the ability to customize the Firefox interface for a smaller screen. On my Air, I’ve scrunched everything into a compact area.

What browser and mail apps do you use?

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Three Low-Cost, DIY Ways to Use Your Smartphone While Wearing Gloves

Bobby Travis — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 03:45:15 +0000

So I’m in Winnipeg now. Winnipeg, affectionately referred to as Winterpeg, and thought by some (possibly me) to be a window into the truth behind the colloquialism “when Hell freezes over.” Okay, so I’m being a bit dramatic — but it can get freaking cold here in the depths of winter, man! Minus 75 degrees Celsius in the wind isn’t uncommon here. I have no idea what that is in Fahrenheit, but I’m sure you Americans will agree that anything north of Fargo has got to be cold.

In any case, my new location has me continuing my investigation into how to use my tech while freezing my butt off. Previously, I talked about winterizing smartphones, tablets, and laptops. My latest quest has been how to use my capacitive touch screen devices without having to take my gloves off just to answer the phone. And we all know I’m into doing things on the cheap, so we can squash any thoughts about buying those fancy-schmancy touchscreen gloves. It’s DIY or die, baby! This is what I found:

Perusing the Google brought forth three methods from three different, and trusted sites — Lifehacker, Make, and Instructables.

Sewing Conductive Thread

Instructables has a nice tutorial on sewing about a foot of conductive thread into the fingertip of a glove. The idea is to sew just a few close-set stitches (3-5) on the touchy-feely side of the glove, keeping things to about 1/4″ (6mm) in diameter. Smaller is bad, as your iPhone or other smartphone will pretend you don’t exist, and too big will sacrifice accuracy. Why all those inches of thread for just a few, small stitches? Because you want to leave a rats-nest of the special thread on the inside of the glove’s finger, to make sure you get good conductive contact. You may also want to save some for other fingers so you can do multi-touch gestures and the like.

The whole operation costs less than $5 (not including the gloves of course).

No-Sew Method 1: Snap-Fastener

Make Projects has a slightly different take on the subject. They take the complicated sewing out of the equation and shove a brass or nickel-plated snap-fastener right through the fingertip of a heavy glove so it can go clickety-clack on your screen. Now, one might be concerned about scratching or cracking the glass, but if that is the case then I say to you, this: how hard are you tapping your screen anyway? Are you angry? Calm down, guy… seriously.

In a way, this method is more complicated, as it requires more tools than just some thread abd a needle. There is little in the way of precision required here, however, and you get to hit things with a hammer (when you set the snap-fastener’s rivet).

This method costs about $5 to $7.

No-Sew Method 2: Thermal Compound

Leave it to a Lifehacker contributer to come up with a clever and cheap (albeit messy) way to get the job done. Easy, too. This method would work better for thinner gloves, I should think, but be that as it may, it’s pretty cool — and there is not even a dream of a pun intended there. All you need here is a little CPU thermal compound rubbed in to the fingertip of your glove, and voila! No fuss connectivity. Well… no fuss until you need to rub some more in — and maybe a bit of increased screen cleaning.

This is by far the easiest method, though it lacks permanence. The cost of thermal compound (available at most computer stores) is about $7. You can even get it at Radio Shack.

Those were the best — and cheapest methods I found to use your touchscreen tech in the dead of winter. Which one’s your favourite? If you have any other suggestions, I’d love to hear them!

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Drag Text Onto Your Desktop and, Presto!, You Have a New Text Note [Mac]

Evan Kline — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 01:00:49 +0000

OS X is full of little shortcuts that can save you time. Some examples of that include adding folders to your sidebar, revealing the dock and menu bar when using full screen apps, and determining at a glance whether your current document has any unsaved changes. That doesn’t include all of the trackpad gestures that can really speed you up. Now it’s time for another one. How would you like to automatically create a new text note, without doing any copying and pasting?

This functionality is built right into OS X, and it couldn’t be easier. In any app, drag and highlight the text you want to copy, and simply drag it to the desktop. A moment later, and you’ll see a text file on your desktop, containing the text in question. If you open the file, you can edit the text like any other note.

What could this be useful for? I used it when doing some research on a quick and dirty topic, when I knew that I’d never need the information again. I didn’t want to send it to Evernote, so I just dragged a few text notes to my desktop, and kept them there until I was done researching the product. This would also be a good way to quickly copy a phone number from an email message.

Can you think of any other uses for this?

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How to Reveal the Dock and Menu Bar When Using Full Screen Apps in Lion [Mac]

Evan Kline — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 01:00:38 +0000

Here’s a quick tip for you Lion users out there. If you’re a fan of full screen apps, you may miss having quick access to the dock and menu bar. They appear to be gone, but they’re really not. Here’s how to use them.

As Cult of Mac points out, all that you need to do is move your mouse pointer to the edge of the screen that contains your dock, and then give a little “push.” The dock will appear after a brief pause. For the menu bar, simply move your pointer past the top of the screen, and the menu bar will appear.

Do you like full screen mode? I use it constantly on my MacBook Air, and swipe between full screen apps. Do you have any full screen tips to share?

Reveal The Finder Dock and App Menus in Full Screen Apps In Lion [OS X Tips] [Cult of Mac]

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How to Clear Hung Print Jobs With a Quick and Simple Batch File [Windows]

Evan Kline — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 01:00:38 +0000

I don’t know about you, but hung print jobs are the bane of my Windows existence. Have you ever had the “canceling . . .” message that just won’t go away? If you have, there is a simple way to purge your Windows print jobs, using a batch file.

To create the batch file, open a text editor, and copy and paste this text into it:

net stop spooler
del %systemroot%\system32\spool\printers\*.shd
del %systemroot%\system32\spool\printers\*.spl
net start spooler

Save the file with a name of your choosing, and ending with a .cmd suffix, such as killprintjobs.cmd. Just make sure that it ends with the .cmd suffix.

Now, whenever you have a stuck print job that just won’t go away, double click that file to clear the print job. I keep that file on my desktop for such pesky moments. Do you have any tricks that you use when stuck in printer hell?

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How to Add Folders to the Finder Sidebar [Mac]

Evan Kline — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 01:00:18 +0000

If, like me, you’re relatively new to the Mac world, you stumble across tips that are both incredibly useful, and incredibly simple. One such tip concerns how to add folders to your Finder sidebar. There are several reasons you might want to do this. Perhaps you have a folder that you access all of the time, and don’t want to go digging for it. Or perhaps you’re in the middle of a project, and want to temporarily access your project folders with one click. Getting those folders into the Places section of your Finder sidebar is easy, using either of two methods.

The obvious way to get a folder into the Finder sidebar is to just drag it there. Be careful when you do so, as you could accidentally drag it onto another local or remote drive, and copy it there. You just need to make sure that you drag it into the Places section of your Finder.

For a drag-free method of moving a folder to the Finder sidebar, highlight it, and hit Command-Y. The folder will instantly appear in the Places section of your sidebar.

What other Finder tricks do you use?

Add Your Own Folders to the Finder Sidebar in Mac OS X [OS X Daily]

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Free Up Space By Deleting Windows 7 SP1 Backup Files

Evan Kline — Tue, 10 May 2011 01:00:31 +0000

Yesterday, we asked you how much disk space you’ve used up on your system. On a Windows 7 PC, some of that space can be taken up by Service Pack 1 backup files that you might never need. When you install Service Pack 1 for Windows 7, it creates backup files in case you have problems and ever need to uninstall the service pack. You can remove them, though, if you want to. Here’s how.

Should you do it?

Should you remove the Service Pack 1 backup files, though? Once you remove the backups, there’s no turning back. You won’t be able to undo the service pack at that point. There’s no hard and fast rule, but I’d make sure that my system is running well, and probably wait a few weeks, before removing the backup files.

How to Remove the Backup Files

Lost in Technology recently ran down the steps for removing the backup files. You need to run a command prompt, as the administrator (type cmd in the run box of the start menu, and type CTRL + SHIFT + Enter). When the black box comes up, type the following, and then hit Enter:

dism /online /cleanup-image /spsuperseded

You then just need to wait, as the process will take some time.

On my machine, it took about 10 minutes. When it is done, you’ll be greeted with a “Service Pack Cleanup operation completed” message in the command box.

You can see from the image below that the process freed up 1.7 GB of space on my computer running Windows 7 Professional. Your mileage may vary, depending on what version of Windows you’re running.

Is It Worth It?

This process might really beg a bigger question: in today’s age of enormous and inexpensive hard drives, is it really necessary to worry about a gig or two of space? I’d say that if you wait long enough after installing Service Pack 1 to be sure that you’ll never need it, then yes. Every time I buy a computer, I think I’ll never use all that space (I remember thinking that I was set for life with my 17 GB Compaq Pressario, years ago). Invariably, I do. Plus, SSD drives aren’t as large as spinning drives, so space becomes more of a premium if you go that route.

Do you worry about space on your PC?

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Personalize Your Windows 7 Experience: Hidden Themes

Bobby Travis — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 05:38:15 +0000

Windows 7 is likely the best operating system Microsoft has ever put out. Oh, I’m sure some of you die-hards out there will still swear up and down that it’s Windows 98, 2000, or even 3.1 — and you Mac folk can just go ahead and tamp down on those comments bubbling to the surface of your elitist brains right about now — but when you consider the mix of power, beauty, and function, Billy Gates and crew have finally hit the sweet-spot with their latest OS.

One of the greatest things about Windows 7 is the customizability; there are a lot of different things that you can do with it to improve your overall user experience. Some of those things are fairly obvious, and some are a bit of a surprise, but many can be done quickly and easily, even by the non-techie, sometimes with the help of a handy tool or two. This series focuses on some tweaks for personalizing your own Windows 7 setup with as little fuss as possible. Let’s start off with the hidden themes that are just hanging about in your Windows folder.

Hidden Themes

You probably already know that there are several theme-sets that you can apply in Windows 7 with little more than a click, but on the off-chance that you didn’t, head into the Control Panel, look for Appearance and Personalization, and select “Change the theme.” You can also right-click on the desktop and select Personalize from the context menu.

Once inside, you’ll find all of your pre-installed themes, and you can even create and save your own. What you may not have realized is that, depending on your Windows version, you could have anywhere from five to a dozen or more other themes hidden on your system, just waiting for you to find and install them!

You may have noted that, in the pre-installed themes, one of the ones under Aero Themes is named for your country — I have one called Canada. What most don’t realize is that, skulking about in a hidden folder, are themes from other countries as well. Some of them are quite nice, too, containing wallpapers that have beautiful scenes from each respective country. Here’s how you find them:

Open up a folder and click on the white space in the address bar to select and delete the text there, and then copy and paste the following and hit enter: Windows\Globalization\MCT
If you find you can’t access the folder or its files, you may need to follow the steps below to unlock hidden files and folders (otherwise please skip to the next main point):
- Open your Control Panel and click on Appearance and Personalization.
- Near the bottom of the list, you should see Folder Options, and just below it, the link “Show hidden files and folders” — click it.
- In the little pop-up window, be sure that the the radio button for “Show hidden files, folder, and drives” is selected. If you don’t see it right away, double click the “Hidden files and folders” folder — it should expand and you will find the button.
- Click Apply and OK to close the window. If you are given any warnings by Windows that you could severely screw up your system, acknowledge them — see the next point to learn how to not make such warnings a reality…
- You will now be able to see files and folders that you couldn’t see before, and they will have a slightly translucent or “greyed-out” look to them. Leave them alone, where possible, and for the timeframe that you are able to access these files, for the love of all that keeps you sane, DO NOT DELETE ANY OF THEM!!! They are generally hidden for a reason — that reason being so that you don’t muck up your system.
- To save yourself from accidents when you are done with the theme-getting, just repeat the above steps and re-select “Don’t show hidden files, folders, and drives,” hit Apply, OK, etc.
You could also try to browse directly to the folder via the C: drive, but I found that I couldn’t find the folder that way, even with hidden files and folders available.
In MCT, you will find several other folders with the name format MCT-XX. Click on any one of these and you will find a folder with the name of a country, a folder called RSSFeed, sometimes one titled “Websites for X”, and one called Theme. For example, the folder MCT-AU contains the country of Australia.
In the folder named after the country, you will find six wallpapers, which you can use to get a feel for what the theme is about, and can do with as you will — but head over to the Theme folder for easy setup.

In the Theme folder you will see XX.theme. If you want to install that theme, click on it. At this point, you will get a chime from Windows, and your desktop will fade behind a Please Wait sign. After a moment, the sign will fade away and your new theme will be applied — rinse, lather, repeat as necessary!

As the theme is installed, your Control Panel will also open up to the Appearance and Personalization settings, and you will notice the new country theme under your My Themes section. If you want to change away from the new theme, simply click on a different one or install one for a different country. Once the theme you just installed is inactive, if you want to get rid of it, simply right-click on it and select delete. You can always reinstall it later.

Over the next few weeks, we will be posting other simple tweaks and tricks for personalizing your Windows 7 installation, as well as looking at some of the tools out there that help you out in the process. If you have any you would like to suggest, leave a comment, catch me on Twitter (@bobby_travis), or send me an email from my 40Tech contact page.

What countries were in your hidden themes folder?

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How to Avoid Scammy Android Apps

Bobby Travis — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 03:33:21 +0000

The beautiful thing about Android OS, over iOS, is the open platform. The annoying (and potentially dangerous) thing about Android OS, over iOS, is… wait for it… the open platform. It’s a double-edged sword. Say what you want about Apple’s proprietary madness, but the likelihood of a scam or malware app making it through to the iOS App Store is pretty slim — at least in comparison to Google’s Android Market. Does this mean you should never buy Android and jump headfirst into Apple products? By no means! According to the learned fellows over at Tested.com, with a little common sense, some permissions checking, and a dose of healthy skepticism, you can avoid the sneaky apps. Here are the main points:

Check the user reviews on Android Market. Go deeper than the first page. Read them — if there are a ton of positive reviews and they have the same sort of feel to them (like they were written by the same person, for instance), there is probably something up. If there are a ton of negative reviews, there is probably a reason — no matter who wrote them.

View the other apps submitted to the Market by the developer. If there are a string of oddities and things that make you raise a brow or two, you might want to avoid the app you are researching.

Check the developer’s website and support site. If the sites leave you feeling uneasy or that the developer lacks professionalism, you may wish to think twice before purchasing anything by them.

Check the app permissions. This is the big one. If an app has the ability to modify/delete SD card contents, to send a text message or MMS, or to access the internet all willy-nilly and you don’t know why, treat it in the same way you would a Windows application that is trying to do things that don’t make sense: don’t install/remove it, research it, and find out exactly what it’s doing. If the developer isn’t completely clear and forthcoming, get rid of it.

You can research permissions before you install an app by going to the app’s Market page and selecting menu, then security. Once an app is installed, check the permissions in Manage Application Settings.

There are more details of what you can look for via the link below.

How do you keep yourself safe from malware apps and scams on the Android Market?

How to Spot Scams and Malware Apps on Android [Tested]