How-To - page 103

Were you very good this year? Did Santa spoil you, and did you find yourself opening up a brand new Mac under the Christmas tree this morning? Congratulations, we’re jealous… but not so jealous that we aren’t eager to teach you how to get started with your new Mac, so you can enjoy it from day one.

In this handy guide, we’ll take you through initial setup; teach you some awesome tweaks that’ll enhance your OS X experience; introduce you to some of the best apps the Mac has to offer; and tell you about some great accessories that you just shouldn’t be without.

Here’s our guide to setting up your new Mac the right way.

We know many of you lucky so and sos will be unwrapping iPod touches this Christmas, and we want to help you get started with your new device the right way, so that you can begin enjoying it from day one.

In this handy guide, we’ll take you through initial setup; teach you some awesome tweaks that’ll maximize your battery life and enhance your experience; introduce you to some of the best iOS apps the App Store has to offer; and tell you about some great accessories that you just shouldn’t be without.

Here’s our guide to setting up your new iPod touch the right way.

You just got your brand new iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S for Christmas. It’s shiny exterior beckons you to explore your new smartphone. We want to show you how to get started with your new device the right way, so that you can begin enjoying it from day one.

In this handy guide, we’ll take you through initial setup; teach you some awesome tweaks that’ll maximize your battery life and enhance your experience; introduce you to some of the best iOS apps the App Store has to offer; and tell you about some great accessories that you just shouldn’t be without.

Here’s our guide to setting up your new iPhone the right way.

So Santa stuffed an Apple TV in your stocking? That’s pretty freaking awesome. We’re jealous. Well actually, we already had one so I guess we’re not that jealous, but congratulations on joining the club of Apple TV owners. We’re stoked to have you with us, and we want you to get the most from your new gagdget so we’re going to help you get it setup the right way so you can skip through all the menus and side features and dive straight into the good stuff.

In this handy guide, we’ll take you through initial setup; show you the best features of Apple TV and teach you some awesome tweaks that will take your television experience to the next level so you can cuddle up in next to your flatscreen wearing those new pajamas your kids bought you and go into a week-long tv-coma.

Here’s our guide to setting up your new Apple TV the right way.

Stuck for a last minute gift? Here’s a quick tutorial on how to gift an App (via printing or emailing) using iTunes or an iPad.

Notification Center is a useful little addition to iOS, but it’s very limited. As of now, you can’t customize it to show much more than Stocks and Weather. In this video, I’ll show you a little workaround that will allow you to display the current date in Notification Center.

A crashed computer is one of life’s annoyances. A crashed computer that you can’t subsequently reboot becomes a bigger headache. Sometimes the battery in a laptop can be the culprit:

My Macbook froze out of nowhere. I have only had it for a few months. I purchased it new. I tried pushing the restart button and option/command/esc (what it says in the manual to do) but none of that works. My mac is totally unresponsive. What should I do?

Thanks in advance,
Andrea

Sick and tired of seeing the same old linen wallpaper on the login screen every time you boot up your computer? It can get pretty boring after a while. In this video, I’ll show you how to change Lion’s login screen wallpaper to whatever you’d like.

Apple Giveth, and Apple Taketh Away. The Walled Garden approach Apple has taken with its App Store means that not everything you once bought is still available. However, that doesn’t mean you’re out of options for installing software that was previously downloaded:

Hello, I got the iTether app yesterday before Apple pulled it out, but my daughter didn’t get the chance to download it. How will I install it to my daughter’s iPhone? I back up my phone to my PC and I have the app in my file. Please help.

Rodante

Along with music, movies and photos, many people have some mysterious “other” data on their iDevices, which seems to increase over time. One reader is wondering how to get rid of this data and free up space:

When I look at my iTunes summary of my iPad it shows that there is 2.9GB of “Other” stored on my device. I haven’t put much stuff on my iPad and have no idea what is taking up so much space. I only have a 16GB iPad and like to put movies on it for when I travel, so space is a premium. How do I find out what is taking up so much space, and what is the best way to maximize storage space on my iPad?

Thanks, Kyle

iTunes Home Sharing has been around for a few years and is a handy way to access your media between devices. One reader wonders about trying to use this service while traveling:

My setup is Apple based i.e. iPad/iphone/appletv2/airport extreme/imac. The iTunes Home Sharing works brilliantly. Is there a way by which I can retain the home sharing function remotely? In other words if I am on 3g and still use the be able to see the iTunes media as I would on the same wifi? I have seen various articles referring to vpn and then indicating that iTunes is not available through the vpn tunnel or through the airport extreme etc.

Mac OS X Lion includes buried “HiDPI” display modes, which brings the possibility of Retina Display Macs one step closer to reality. Essentially, these display modes make user interface elements twice the resolution typically found on Macs, therefore increasing clarity and detail throughout the UI. This is exactly how the iPhone handles graphics with the Retina Display, and provides some insight into what Apple might be planning for future iterations of it’s computers. While not very practical at this point in time, it’s neat to try out. In this video, I’ll show you how to enable these HiDPI display modes in OS X Lion.

Sometimes when moving to a newer computer, you realize only after the old system is gone that you’re missing some data. With the proliferation of iPhones and iPads, cloud based services can help transfer things like Contacts and Calendars if incomplete:

My old Mac Pro was running OS X 10.4.11 and my new MacBook Pro came with Snow Leopard. Using Migration assistant just about everything except Contacts transferred correctly. Now the Mac Pro is across the country in NV and I am near DC. The only thing that has my old Contacts is my iPad. How do I transfer my old Contacts from the iPad to the new MacBook Pro without losing them when I sync?

Clint

The new iTunes Match service is a handy way to share music among all your computers and iDevices. One reader is wondering if this feature can also be used to replace older 128kbps DRM encoded tracks with their higher bitrate, unencumbered iTunes Plus versions:

Just wondering something about iTunes Match. I’ve got a bunch of songs on iTunes that I purchased early in the game, and they are in .m4p format, so they have the DRM locks and can’t easily be converted to .mp3 format. They are only at 128kbps, which is the only thing iTunes offered back in the day. If I sign up for iTunes Match, will these songs be updated to their new DRM-free 256kbps versions, or do I have to pay for the iTunes Plus service first?

With the dawn of solid state storage becoming a viable option for computers, many users are presented with the problem of managing disk space, as SSDs are typically much smaller than traditional spinning hard drives. In this video, I’ll show you how to effectively free up disk space on your Mac.

Mac OS X Lion includes many features that are very similar to those found in iOS. In this video, I’ll show you how to expand it even further, and make Mac OS X Lion even more like iOS.

Software can be a cantankerous thing. Sometimes programs won’t launch when you need them, and other times they won’t go away when you’re done! One reader is having a problem with iTunes refusing to quit when asked:

I have some questions related to 10.5 iTunes. When I quit iTunes it goes about the process normally and then starts back up. iTunes is using 80-100% CPU usage when running. Could this be related to a third-party plug-in? Very frustrating and have to force restart my mini as iTunes cancels the shutdown process.

Thanks, Tim

If you liked that tip earlier today about adding track information to your iTunes dock icon, here’s another great tip for you: it’s easy to replace the boring old iTunes icon in the dock with the album art for whatever track is playing. Here’s how.

There are a lot of great apps out there that will alert you to what track is currently playing in iTunes by flashing a notice on your Mac’s desktop; Coversutra and Growltunes, to name just two. But did you know that iTunes has a secret option to display track information on your desktop every time the track changes? It’s true. It’s attractive. And it’s just a terminal command away.

With security becoming an ever more serious issue, keeping your files safe is more important than ever before. Using an encrypted disk image is an easy way to safely store away files, while keeping them in one consolidated location. In this video, I’ll show you how to set up encrypted disk images.

So you’ve upgraded to the latest and greatest, and it’s time to give your old Mac to a new owner. But how do you get rid of all your old data and software before making the handoff?

I just pulled the trigger on ordering a new iMac, a nice new 21.5″ i7 quad-core. Needless to say, I can’t wait, even though it will be my first venture with OS X Lion. I get doing a full backup from my current iMac on my Time Capsule to load up my new iMac when it arrives, but I am wondering what to do with old Mac computers to make it clean and ready to gift to the Grandkids’ family.

Apple’s new music service, iTunes Match, launched today as a beta, and it includes the handy ability to upgrade your low quality audio tracks to lossless audio tracks and then mirror them in the cloud. In this video, I’ll show how to set up iTunes match and upgrade your songs. It just couldn’t be easier.

Apple likes to make things as easy as possible to join WiFi networks, especially when the network isn’t password protected. However in one reader’s case this isn’t a good thing but rather a major headache:

Is there a way to RESTRICT joining certain wifi networks to certain OS X user accounts?
When using my MacBook Pro, I have two basic OS X logins. One for known SECURE wifi networks, and one for INSECURE wifi networks. The problem is that Airport settings always remember the INSECURE network, and almost always tries to connect my SECURE OSX login to the INSECURE wifi, at which point Mail (or other apps) start up and shoot my logs/passes across the air for all to see.

Since the announcement of Siri with the iPhone 4S, countless OS X users have been wondering if Siri will eventually makes it’s way to the Mac. Well, you may not know it, but OS X actually includes a Speech Recognition system called Speakable Items, which is very similar to Siri in many ways. In this video, I’ll show you how to set it up, as well as how to tweak Speakable Items to your liking.

A lot of people don’t have access to unlimited 3G data plans, so they need to keep an eye out on the amount of data they use every month. There are different tasks and apps that will use data on an iPhone or iPad, and it can be hard to keep track of them all. Luckily, Apple has thought of a few ways you can limit access to 3G data by forcing apps to use Wi-Fi instead when it is available.