iUseApple

I stumbled upon Shiira a few weeks ago, just passing it off as another web browser. “There’s already Safari, Firefox, Opera, and Camino on my MacBook,” I thought to myself. “Why do I need another Internet browser?”

I gave Shiira a chance. And what a delightful experience it has been. Sometimes I feel like Mozilla Firefox gets way to cluttered with toolbars and extensions. Shiira has a simple interface, Mozilla power, and cool innovations.

Shiira 1.2.2

Download Shiira 1.2.2 from here.

Shiira 1.2.2 was the latest stable Internet browser when this post was written. Shiira 1.2.2 boasts a simple interface. The Sidebar houses bookmarks, history, even downloads tabs. A great all in one interface right there. I can toggle the sidebar by clicking it’s icon in the top right corner. There is a Google search bar and tabbed interface too.

Import Bookmarks from Firefox and Safari

I can even import my bookmarks from Mozilla Firefox and Safari by Selecting Shiira : Preferences from the top left in the menubar. A preference pane pops up. Select the Bookmarks icon. Select either Firefox or Safari for the Bookmarks bar and the Bookmarks menu.

Shiira 2.0 Beta

Download Shiira 2.0 from here.

Shiira 2.0 is a bit unstable but looks fantastic. The tabbed interface has been replaced by a Page Dock that is at the bottom of the browser window. I can switch back to regular tabbed browsing in the preferences. Most other preferences were greyed out in the release I downloaded. I must remember this is a beta and still in the works. Bookmarks and History have moved to sleeker floating windows. Bookmarks, History, and Downloads can all be found in one place in the new Shelf, a replacement for the Sidebar.

One great innovation is the kiosk mode, that operates a lot like Expose. If I click the kiosk icon in the lower right, all of my tabs will appear as tiles on the screen, detailing the design of each site.

Fullscreen mode is a welcome addition to Shiira 2.0 as well.

If I use my Mac for multilingual projects, say I write a newsletter or do anything that’s not in English (i.e. Spanish, French, etc), and I’m trying to figure out how to set the language in Pages to fit my particular needs (including spell check and auto-correction). Here is how I do it.

1. In my document, select “Inspector”, which is the main control center of iWork.

2. Select whatever text I’ve already typed if any. If I haven’t typed anything yet, simply jump to step 3.

3. In Inspector, select the “T” for text. Here I will see all kinds of controls to change my text in different ways to fit any project I’m working on.

4. Within the Text controls, select “More”.

5. The second drop-down menu from the top is the Language menu. Select the appropriate language. Now, for this document everything I type within the text box I selected will be checked for the language I specified here.

Check back often for new tips and tutorials!

Cheers!
Leo

Ever hear of Geometry Wars, the online arcade game for XBOX 360? It has an old school feel and fun gameplay. Maybe I am just a sucker for space shooters. I refuse to go out and buy the XBOX 360 because it’s overpriced and plagued with hardware issues. Holdin’ out for a Wii, honestly. But anyways, thanks to the Mozilla Firefox Online Games Toolbar I found a version of Geometry Wars for Mac OS X!

I have been using my keyboard as the default controller. Kinda stinks on the keyboard. This game was designed for dual analog controllers. One stick moves the spaceship around while the other fires in a direction. I could go out and buy a Logitech Dual Action Gamepad, which I have played with and didn’t really like the feel. Why can’t USB controller manufacturers ever get the ergonomics totally right? I have a few PS2 Dual Analog Controllers laying around. I can just buy this adapter online to convert to USB.

Download Grid Wars 2 for OSX here. Make sure I click on the Mac link to download the OS X version.

iStat Pro is a top notch statistics viewer for monitoring practically everything on my Mac. I can monitor processor load, disk space, memory usage, battery life, and network bandwidth. This widget is highly customizable and even has a few skins to choose from. If I haven’t already downloaded iStat Pro for my Mac, now is probably a good time.

iStat Pro can be downloaded on Apple’s Official Dashboard Site:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/istatpro.html

Sometimes when I want to upload photos to a site there are size restrictions. The photos my digital camera takes are enormous in file size, so I need to trim them down to put them online. If I resize the dimensions of the image to be smaller, then the filesize will decrease.

Image files a digital camera takes can have big dimensions. My 7.0 Megapixel camera takes pictures 3072×2304 @ 72 dpi. What does this mean? The image’s dimension is 3072 pixels wide and 2304 pixels high. The image’s resolution is 72 dots per inch. 72 dpi is the web standard for image resolution. Any higher resolution significantly increases file size. If I pack 300 dpi into the same image, there are many more pixels, making the changes in color more detailed. 300 dpi is good for printing an image, but that’s a whole other discussion.

Since most digital cameras’ resolution is 72 dpi, all I really have to worry about are the dimensions when resizing a picture to give it a smaller filesize.

To check an images information in iPhoto, select an image in the library and hit Apple+I.

To resize a photo in iPhoto 6 I must first select the file or files I want to resize. I can resize more than one image by cherry picking images in the library by holding down Apple as I select images. Or if the images are in a list, click the first image, hold down Shift and select the last image.

Once the images are selected:

In iPhoto 6, go to the top menu and select File: Export.

In older versions of iPhoto, go to the top menu and select Share: Export.

A settings window appears. This is where we will change the filesize of the image to be more appropriate for the web.

Different websites have different guidelines for the maximum filesize an image can be. A good and standard dimension to make a photo for the web is 1024×768. This gives the ability for others to even use the images as a decent wallpaper. Images exported as a 1024 x 768 JPEG will most likely be around 500 - 600 kilobytes in filesize. This is still under a megabyte. I noticed MySpace has a 600 megabyte rescriction for photos. If the filesize needs to be smaller, make the image 800 x 600.

Select JPG from the format selector.

Enter 1024 into the width dialog. iPhoto automatically knows the height should be 768.

Make sure use file extension is checked.

Check Use filename if I want the image’s filename to be the same. In the next dialog you can even give the image a different filename. Or if you want to rename the images based on the album they are in, select Use album name.

Click Export.

Choose the folder where I want to export the picture(s).

In this box, make sure .jpg is at the end of the filename.

Hit OK.

What’s up everyone! I thought I’d introduce myself as well. My name is Leo de Leon, 25-years-old, and I use my MacBook Pro for all kinds of cool stuff such as making a full-time income from home, recording soundtracks with GarageBand, making Keynote presentations for church every week, making DVD’s with iDVD and editing videos with iMovie HD, staying in touch with family in other states thru iChat, etc, etc.

My Mac is a HUGE part of my life, and if you’re a lucky Mac owner like me, I want to show you how to use it to make your life MUCH easier just like mine does for me.

I will be covering mostly iLife and iWork stuff. If you would like for me to cover a specific project you have in mind, i.e. how to record a song using real instruments and you singing in GarageBand, or how to transfer your old home videos into awesome, professional DVD’s, please feel free to email your request to: leodeleon@iuseapple.com.

Check back often for new posts!

Cheers!
Leo

Ever wonder what a certain color is on the monitor? Sometimes I am stuck in Photoshop, wanting to know the certain RGB values of a color outside of photoshop. As a web designer, knowing exact colors is invaluable.

Every Mac cames with an application called DigitalColor Meter. DigitalColor Meter is located in User:Applications:Utilities:DigitalColor Meter. Navigate there or search for DigitalColor Meter in Spotlight.

Open DigitalColor Meter

Select the type of RGB value I want from the selector.

Precentage RGB

Hexidecimal RGB

Actual RGB

Move the mouse to the exact pixel I wish to sample.

Hit Apple+L to lock the color into the meter.

Hit Shift+Apple+C to copy the color value to the clipboard.

Greetings! My name is Mark Burstiner. I will be one of your new best friends. I’m here to inform you, teach you, and help you get the most of your Mac. Apple OS X has so many quick and easy shortcuts for things you do every day, and SO many programs to make your friends say “Woah, woah, what was that?? What did you just do?” Please don’t hesitate to drop me any suggestions, comments, or questions via e-mail at midnight@iuseapple.com. I hope to hear from you all soon!

Apple is moving away from the traditional look of OS X. In iTunes 7, I noticed a whole new look with different graphite scroll bars, smooth header that fit seamlessly into the interface, and new sleek buttons. This means Apple is changing Aqua, the theme Apple uses in OS X. Aqua is the look and feel of a Mac. In OS X Leopard, Apple will be performing an overhaul on Aqua, changing the brushed metal to a smoother interface.

So now I have to wait until Leopard to make my Mac look cool?

Wrong. UNO is a freeware application for OS X Tiger and requires iTunes 7. UNO unifies all my applications to follow a certain Aqua look. So, instead of all my applications looking a tad different, now everything is similar and sweet. Mozilla now looks like Camino on my MacBook Pro. Mozilla was bothering me the most, because I frequently have iTunes and Mozilla open simultaneously. Now they look like they belong together.

Find out more about UNO from the official website:
http://gui.interacto.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33&Itemid=47

KisMac is a free and open source Wardriving application, like NetStumbler for Windows. I can use it to accurately find open wireless networks while I am on the road. This is known as Wardriving.

KisMac is especially effective with a GPS unit and can even link to Google Earth with the .kismac Google Earth server. With the Google Earth plug-in, I can map out useable wireless signals and even share this information with other KisMac users. This takes Wardriving to a whole new level.

Even if I don’t have a GPS unit, I can view all the other logged KisMac entries in Google Earth.