TekkieBob - All Things Tech!

New to the Mac? Had a Mac for years? Either way you need to know the "in's and out's" of the System Preferences of your operating system. Getting under the "hood" of your Mac need not mean getting you hands dirty. Don't worry, you don't need to be a computer geek or even slightly nerdy to master your Mac's look and feel. 1 What this series will cover Putting stickers all over the outside of your laptop is not the only way to customize it. In the next several blog posts, we will discover many obvious and also some hidden treats in the System Preferences . Want to control how often pictures change in your screen saver? Or perhaps you type the same response to emails, over and over again? Or maybe the screen dims too quickly for your taste. All of this is can be under your control. Apple sets your Mac's settings out of the box to work in a generally easy manner. But you are you , why don't you make your Mac work the way you want ...

For you FileMaker  Pro Advanced users out there... If you have several date fields and would like to calculate years elapsed (for example a person's age) here is a custom function that will do it. Of course it is a simple calculation and could be typed each time you need it in a calculation field, but this is designed to be used in several places where needed. Examples: Age  Years of service since hire date Years married You get the idea. /**  * =====================================  * YearsElapsed ( startDate )  *  * PURPOSE:  * Convenience function for working with  * dates to calculate age or years elapsed to current date.  *  * RETURNS:  * (number)  *  * PARAMETERS:  * startDate = Field reference  *  * EXAMPLES:  * YearsElapsed ( dateBirth ) = 46.7  * YearsElapsed ( dateHired) = 2.7  *  * DEPENDENCIES:  * ...

Often it is useful to show a person's age or years elapsed since a start date.  For example: Hire Date: 4/1/2012 - Years of service: 1.5 Here's a formula for Numbers that will do the trick: =IF(ISBLANK(cellReference),"",DATEDIF( cellReference ,TODAY(),"D")/365.2425) Replace the cellReference with the actual cell reference. i.e.: (A1)  So here's the breakdown: =IF(ISBLANK(cellReference),""  --- this checks to see if there is a start date in your referenced cell.  For example say your spreadsheet has a cell (A1) that holds a date of birth, but it is not yet referenced, this will result in an empty string. (Blank cell) Otherwise, it calculates the years:  DATEDIF( cellReference ,TODAY(),"D")/365.2425) DATEDIF compares two dates. The first date is your cell reference i.e.: (A1) The second is the current date according to your computer, iOS device: TODAY()  returning the Day -  "D" Then the difference is divi...