I have been using the Macintosh computer off and on since 1989. On Friday, I'll share some tips and tricks using the computer and various accessories. All reviews and tips are my own.
I have been using the Macintosh computer off and on since 1989. On Friday, I'll share some tips and tricks using the computer and various accessories. All reviews and tips are my own.
A list of all the Blog Posts in this category.
Launch Bar is a great Macintosh productivity utility. It makes using the Macintosh so much easier.
One of the cool features is the ability to quickly enable a search action. With a couple of keystrokes, you can instantly open up your browser to whatever search results that you want to see. Potentially saving a lot of time doing it the old fashion way.
Here's a quick way to search for something on Twitter:
First you'll need to add a new Search Template. This is done by opening the LaunchBar Index, and selecting the Search Templates (UTF-8):
Now your ready to create your own search templates. The key thing to remember in a search template is to grab the URL from search results and replace the keywords that you used with a '*'.
A basic example:
If you had the following URL from a Bing Search for GusODog:
https://www.bing.com/search?q=GusODog&form=QBLH&sp=-1&pq=gusodog&sc=8-7&qs=n&sk=&cvid=F62E44EB0F524B788301CE611566657C
Your Search Template might look like this:
https://www.bing.com/search?q=*
I filtered out some of the text in the URL that I didn't think was important.
You can now search Twitter for what people are talking about:
For Twitter Templates:
Name: Twitter
Template URL:
https://twitter.com/search?q=*&src=typed_query&f=live
If you have a lot of photos in Google Photos, now you can quickly search for the one you're looking for.
Name: Google Photos
Template URL:
https://photos.google.com/search/*
Now when you want to search for something on twitter:
If your a frequent user of MonoSnap, you should consider upgrading to Snagit. It's a much more powerful application that offers a lot more capabilities. It's certainly a step up to making screen captures.
While MonoSnap might be an attractive solution because MonoSnap is free. For some, Snagit seems a "bit pricey" at $49.95 (one-time fee). However, when you see the overall features it becomes clear that Snagit is the screen capture for champions.
MonoSnap Editor Window
Snagit 2020 Editor Window
There are a lot of reasons to use Snagit. Here are just some of the ones that I have come up with:
Better Annotate Tools - A lot more annotate tools. MonoSnap has 11 tools, while Snagit has 19 - including Stamp, Step, Simplify, and more that are not in MonoSnap. The nice thing is that you can create your own theme. This means that you can create company color styles for any arrow or shape tool. In addition, you can share those themes with other Snagit users.
Advance Editor - Ability to combine screenshots, add effects and more. Basically the editor has everything you need to modify a screenshot so that you can communicate your message. You can even combine screenshots into a video and dictate over it.
Snagit Full page Capture with Chrome - Snagit makes it easy to capture a full page in Chrome. Simply click on the arrow for Scrolling Capture. If the scrolling capture doesn't work, you can always use the Panoramic Capture to capture full web pages, long documents and more.
Time Delay Captures - You can set the record to start whatever duration you want. In Monosnap you can only do a 10-second delay for full screens. Snagit allows you to set a delay in any capture type - Image, Video or Panoramic.
Advance Video Functions - You can record your WebCam and/or Microphone while recording videos. This makes it easy to talk over the video and explain more about what is going on.
A cool hidden trick in the MacOS Finder is the ability to rotate an image or video without having to open up an application. There are 2 hidden keyboard shortcuts - rotate right and rotate left.
Note: Using this method will change the modified date of the file, it won't change the Created date.
Do you have any old CDs/DVDs of old fonts? Wonder if it's still possible to use them? Are they in the legacy Font Suitcase format.
Good News! You can still use them in the latest version of macOS (macOS version 10.15.5). When you double click on the file it won't be discovered by any application in the system.
How to import Fonts in legacy Font Suitcase into your computer
That's it!
I have found that my Fontographer fonts work well in any application. I was able to use them in Affinity Designer, Swift Publisher and OmniGraffle.
One of the downsides of a new iMac is that it doesn't come with an audio import. You can no longer connect audio devices as imports - such as microphones or cables connected to a radio.
A long time ago I purchased a Griffin iMic to record audio with my G3 Macintosh . So I thought I take it out and see if it still works for the 2019 iMac computer.
iMic is not a microphone, but rather an Input/Output device using a 3.5mm jack, that lets you connect standard audio products such as microphones, headphones, home stereo equipment, VCRs, musical instruments and virtually any other line-level or mic-level audio device. It's basically a 'sound card on a cable' that allows you to record and play digital audio using your USB-equipped computer. Some computers (like the Macintosh iBook, G4 Cube, Titanium PowerBook, and numerous PC laptops) rely on USB for complete audio support; others have limited or no audio hardware. For these computers, iMic can be used for audio input and output.
TechSmith release Snagit 2020 officially on October 22, 2019. There has been five updates since then with the latest update on May 12, 2020.
This week I have been playing around with Snagit 2020, and thought it would be interesting to see what changes were not announced from Snagit 2019.
Here are some of the new things I have found
Right Clicking on images in the Snagit Library has 3 new options:
Snagit has a share feature that makes it easy to share a modified image within the application. In this release, they add a few new locations to easily share to Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Outlook, Pages, Keynote, Box and Slack.
For Slack and Box, you will need to configure your account options in the Preferences panel. Slack integration will require permissions from the App Manager before installing it.
There is a new Callout Arrow shape. This means you can have a text box with an arrow pointing to a place on the image. It's a simple feature that I can see using a lot. It saves the trouble of having two objects - an arrow and a text box.
You can have the arrow be a separate color than the text box.
Visual Guide Templates are an exciting feature in this release. Basically they allow you to combine images to tell the story of your bug/feature.
In this release there are 13 different templates. You can download the additional template as part of the TechSmith Assets for Snagit for an annual fee of $49.
One template that I think will be useful is the Meme one. Now it will be easy to create Memes and instantly share in Slack.
I would recommend getting Snagit 2020, just for the templates and the new callout. I don't use the Shared Library feature much. Most of the time I drag images out of the library to the desktop.
The slack integration is cool, but I'll need to have an administrator enable that. For me, it's just as easy to drag/drop the image to the Slack window.
Have you ever wanted to play audio on your Mac to your iPhone? You can't simply connect the phone as a Bluetooth device.
You need AirFoil
AirFoil is not the best tool for video playback. The sound will always be out of sync to the video clip, even if you use the audio delays.
The iPhone and Mac have to be on the same wireless network. If you don't see your iPhone in the device window it's most likely because it's not on the same WiFi network.
In addition, your iPhone has to have the iOS Satelite app open in order to be discovered.
You can pick the sound source to be from a specific application to the System Audio. The application is neat because you can play music from iTunes to an external device while keeping the local system sounds to the computer.
AirFoil allows users to adjust the sound volume on the device on the computer, so you can play music on the Apple TV on the other side of the house and control the volume.
Griffin PowerMate is a programable USB Multimedia Controller. Its a neat tech toy that makes it easy to adjust the volume no matter what application you are in.
Griffin PowerMate has a LED light that can be turned off
Last Fall, I installed a Satechi USC-Clamp Hub on my new iMac Computer. This is a cool mini-hub that puts a bunch of ports on the front of your iMac.
Satechi USC-Clamp Hub connected to my iMac.
You get:
It was easy to attach this to the computer and easy to remove if needed. There's no software to install, simply connect the USB-C cable and then tighten the clamp to secure the hub.
It cost $49.99 on Amazon.com. (Non-Affiliate Link!) According to Camel Camel Camel that's been the same price for about a year. For some unknown reason, it dropped to $34.87 for a day last July.
I would recommend anyone getting this for their computer. This also makes a great gift for that Macintosh User who seems to have everything. Note: It only works on the latest iMacs.
If you have any ZIP, Tar or Stuffit archives in your collection. The best application to uncompress these is the Unarchiver by MacPaw Inc.
The Unarchiver is the only app you need to open RAR on Mac. It's times more powerful than the native macOS utility and supports infinitely more archive formats.
The Unarchiver aims to be the only unarchiving program you will ever need and to stay out of your way.
In the Application Preferences Extraction, set the "Extract archives to:" to the Desktop. That way when you extract content from flash drives and CDs you don't get prompt that there isn't enough disk space or the space is write-protected. It's a simple step now that will save you trouble later.