Faith, Family & the Mac

Commonly Used Mac Keyboard Shortcuts

Friday, September 28th, 2007 | Mac Resources, Tips | No Comments

Command Key

A great way to save time when using your Mac is to use keyboard shortcuts. Below, I’ve listed 27 commonly used keyboard shortcuts. You can find additional ones in the System Preferences under Keyboard & Mouse. In addition, Apple has a more extensive list of keyboard shortcuts on their website.

Bold Selected Text ……………………………… Command + B
Capture Portion of Screen to a File ……….. Command + Shift + 4
Capture Screen to a File ………………………. Command + Shift + 3
Close Tab/Window …………………………….. Command + W
Copy ………………………………………………… Command + C
Cut …………………………………………………… Command + X
Find & Replace ………………………………….. Command + F
Force Quit …………………………………………. Option + Command + Esc
Get Info …………………………………………….. Command + I
Italicize Selected Text ………………………….. Command + I
New Tab ……………………………………………. Command + T
New Windows ……………………………………. Command + N
Open …………………………………………………. Command + O
Paste …………………………………………………. Command + V
Preferences ………………………………………… Command + ,
Print ………………………………………………….. Command + P
Quit …………………………………………………… Command + Q
Save ………………………………………………….. Command + S
Select All …………………………………………… Command + A
Toggle Open Applications ……………………. Command + Tab
Toggle Open Windows in Application …… Command + `
Underline Selected Text ………………………. Command + U
Undo ………………………………………………… Command + Z
View All Windows …………………………….. F9
View Application Windows …………………. F10
View Dashboard ………………………………… F12
View Desktop ……………………………………. F11

The nice thing about keyboard shortcuts on a Mac is that most shortcuts perform the same task across the system. So, you only need to learn them once and you can apply them in just about any application.

Which keyboard shortcuts are your favorite? Are any of the above listed shortcuts new to you? Do you know of any that I missed? Please share with me in the comments.

Mac 101 - System Preferences: System - Part 2

Thursday, September 27th, 2007 | Mac 101 | No Comments

Well, we’re done to the last few areas under the System category of System Preferences. Today we’ll talk about Speech settings, Startup Disk and Universal Access settings.

Speech
If you didn’t know this already, let me tell you - your Mac can speak. It can read off text and it can also respond to spoke commands. In the Speech section of System Preferences is where you can control the speech settings of your Mac. Here you can turn on and off Speech Recognition, as well as calibrate the microphone and modify a few other settings. Further, your Mac can read to you. It can read the text of alerts when they are displaced, it can announce when an application requires attention and it can also read selected text. Again, the Speech section of System Preferences is where you can modify the settings that control the speaking ability of your Mac.

Startup Disk
Most user probably will not need to modify any settings in this area of System Preferences. Basically, here you can tell your Mac to use a different Startup disk than your hard drive. You can tell it to use a network drive to load the operating system when starting up or a partition on the internal hard drive. My suggestion is, don’t mess with these settings unless you know what you’re doing.

Universal Access
The Mac is handicap accessible. Universal Access is a group of settings that can modify the way the system works and looks to assist people with various handicaps. There are settings to make the Mac more user friendly for visually impaired or hearing impaired people.

This wraps up the System Preferences series of lessons. System Preferences has another category called “Other.” Settings in this category will vary from user to user. These depend on software utilities that you install on your Mac. As you install utilities that are integrated into the Mac OS X, their preference panes will appear in the Other category of System Preferences.

To receive similar content from Gustacci.com, grab an RSS feed or sign up for email delivery. I hope you find this tutorial helpful. Please let me know your thoughts, comments and suggestions in the comments section.

More Mac Lessons: Mac 101

Apple Headlines 9.26.2007

Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 | Apple Headlines | No Comments

Your iLife just got better
Apple just released a slew of point-updates for iLife ‘08, promoting hard-workers iMovie, GarageBand, and iPhoto…

Apple drops new Leopard build, may be release candidate
Labeled “Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard build 9A559,” the new release came just hours after the Cupertino-based company issued two minor updates to the previous full-sized build (9A527), both of which were aimed at testing the system’s automated Software Update mechanism.

Notice for Boot Camp Beta Users
The Boot Camp Assistant and license for Boot Camp beta versions 1.0b through 1.2b will expire on September 30th, 2007. Expiration does not affect installed copies of Windows. Updating the beta license is simple.

Hands on: Getting down to iWork ‘08
With iWork ‘08, the latest generation of its office suite, Apple has given Mac users a powerful alternative to Microsoft’s Office for Mac. This new version finally offers an alternative to Excel called Numbers, a spreadsheet tool unlike any that has come before it. It also adds some great new features to iWork’s other two applications — the presentation program Keynote and the word processor Pages — including a few that many users felt were lacking in previous releases.

Apple’s Leopard Will Exclude 800MHz G4 Processors
According to AppleInsider, Apple is about to announce that Leopard will not support 800 MHz G4 PowerPC processors. Previously developers had been told that it would require at least an 800 MHz G4.