Skip to main content

Series - 5 Mac OS X Apps That Can Help Your Productivity

Mac OS X Productivity

Apple has packed so many features into OS X Leopard that, for many, learning each one and becoming proficient at its use seems an impossible task!

Over the course of the next few days, I will present a series of "how-to" posts featuring five Mac OS X Applications that really aid in productivity. They are:

  1. Spotlight - if it's in your Mac, you'll find it here!
  2. Address Book - People, people, people!
  3. Mail - From keeping in touch to keeping it together!
  4. iCal - Where am I supposed to be today?
  5. Quicklook - See what is in that file now!

What you'll learn

Each article will feature real-life usage and ideas that are practical. You will learn through screenshots, text and video tutorials how each of these applications can help you organize your work and your life. Of course, we'll try to have fun at the same time! After all, that's why you bought your Mac, right? Stay tuned...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Acid3 Test

I did an Acid3 test with a few browsers and these are the results I got.  For those unfamiliar, as I understand it, Acid3 is a test to see how compliant a browser is with current standards with the W3C . Browser # 1: Chrome by Google.  Running under Windows Vista Home on my Mac in VMWare. 79/100 Not bad for a new browser.  I'll be curious to see what the Mac version will do when it comes out. Browser #2: Firefox v.3.0.1 Mac OS X 10.5.4 71/100 Not as good as Chrome, but I have a PILE of extensions on Firefox. Browser #3: Safari 3.1.2 Mac OS X 10.5.4 75/100 Better than Firefox but still lower than Chrome. My take is overall they seem to perform about the same but I'll stick with Safari for now.  I use Firefox for much of my web browsing, but Safari is fast becoming a close second. Someday, maybe I'll test Opera too. Cheers!

Tips: Delete duplicate entries in "Open With..." dialog in Finder

Duplicates!!! When you control+click (or right click if you have enabled that option) on Mountain Lion, and there seems to be several duplicate applications listed and/or apps you no longer use, here is a Terminal shell script that will fix that.  Just copy and paste the code below in a Terminal window. /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain user (Terminal can be found using Launchpad or Spotlight) After pasting, hit the Return key and allow time to run, then type "killAll Finder" without the quotes, and Return.  This will rebuild the "Open With..." menu.   If you do not see an immediate effect on the lists, restart your Mac.   Should be no need to restart. (Thanks, JK) Duplicates and old apps gone! If you wish, you can make a Service that will do it using Automator as well: Open Automator (Launch Pad or Applications folder) Create...

Do You Need to Defragment a Mac’s Hard Drive?

--> Do You Need to Defragment a Mac's Hard Drive? About Focus on Macs In my mailbag this week, I found a couple of questions about defragmenting a Mac's hard drive. This question usually comes from new Mac users, or individuals who switch to the Mac from the Windows environment, where disk defragmentation utilities abound. Some individuals want to know which third-party disk defragmentation app they should use, or wonder why there is no defrag tool in OS X. Courtesy of Apple OS X does have disk defragmentation capabilities, but they're built into the system rather than a separate tool. Since OS X 10.2, Apple has included automatic defragmentation in the Mac OS. In essence, the Mac OS has built-in safeguards that attempt to prevent file fragmentation from occurring; it's also able to repair fragmentation, should it occur. This means that for the average Mac user, there really is no reason to worry about disk defragmentation, at least not as ...