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Macintosh miscellany

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MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

19:55 / 06.11.06

I have a French OS and Microsoft Office in French on my work computer. So I can't use "smart quotes" because my only option (replacing the "straight quotes or smart quotes" option) is "quotes or 'guillemets'," which are those << >> things you see around French quotations.

Does anyone have a keyboard shortcut for MS Word for Mac to create curly quotes?

21:27 / 06.11.06

Not sure if the localized French versions of software and OS will cause issues, but the English key commands for curly quotes are the following:

"option + [" is a double starting curly quote.
"option + shift + [" is a double closing curly quote.
"option + ]" is a single opening quote.
"option + shift + ]" is a single closing quote.

You could also go into the "System Preferences > International"
Choose the "Input Menu" tab
Select "Keyboard Viewer" from the list and also check the option "show input menu in menu bar".

Now, click the new icon that has appeared (regional flag) in the right-hand corner of the finder's title bar and select "Show Keyboard Viewer".

From here a little app pops up and will show you what the keys are when you press keys and their modifiers. Useful when you're working in font faces that map characters differently than the norm.

There used to be something like this in the pre-OS X days that was much easier to access named Key Caps, but now you have to do a bit of digging to get to it.

Good luck.

21:33 / 06.11.06

By the magic of the International preference panel, plus activating the Keyboard Viewer (the combination of which allows one to see what all the keys do when you hold option etc and is very useful for this sort of thing) I predict that...

OPTION+3 should do “ (open)
SHIFT+OPTION+3 should do ” (close)

On my US powerbook keyboard, incidentally, that's OPTION+[ and SHIFT+OPTION+[

Just a guess though, if it's an external keyboard it might not be the same.

07:28 / 07.11.06

i have an i-mac (the one that looks like a plastic tv) and my girlfreind recently got an ipod. unfortunately, they dont want to get to know each other, something to do with the os on it i think. can this be resolved or are we buggered?

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

11:35 / 07.11.06

God bless you all! None of the above options worked (I have an International French keyboard), but I'd never heard of the Keyboard Viewer before, and enabling it let me find the right key combo. The Keyboard Viewer is magical goodness!

julius has no imagination

14:54 / 08.11.06

white_noise: If it's one of the old CRT iMacs, it's probably still got Mac OS 9 on it, which I imagine a new iPod would not be entirely happy with. Depending on the Mac's exact specs it may be possible to install OS X on it, which is a good idea anyway because it's much better... your best bet is probably to find yourself a nearby Mac geek if at all possible to have a look at it and see if it can be upgraded.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

08:00 / 09.11.06

Are OS upgrades for Mac free, or is the jump from OS 9 to OS X like moving from Win98 to XP, where you actually have to buy a new operating system?

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:02 / 09.11.06

Oh, you pay. You pay.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

09:34 / 09.11.06

You do indeed. On the other hand, the change-over is mostly smooth, and quick. It's not like installing XP over Millenium, say, where you spend your life looking for lost data and watching your peripherals explode.

Not that my Windows experiences were negative, no, siree.

09:52 / 09.11.06

hmm, thanks for that. im pretty sure it has osx, but a pretty early version. i have tried to download updates, but its not having it. bah!

10:00 / 09.11.06

Also: whilst you pay, you don't pay as much as Windows. 10.4 (Tiger) cost me about £90. OSX has tended to cost £90-£100 for each major release; Vista costs between £80 and about £300 depending on which of the six versions you choose to get.

There are only two OSX boxed versions: OSX, and OSX Server, and the latter concerns relatively few people.

So you pay about the same; more releases within the same space of time. I tend to think of it as "Mac Tax" (though I skipped 10.3, going from 10.2 to 10.4). They always support the previous version to some extent, so you aren't entirely forced to upgrade... but you are, of course, eventually.

Releases like 10.4.1, 10.4.2, 10.4.3 (the second-digit-point-release) are free, obviously.

julius has no imagination

11:34 / 09.11.06

As I've sort of glossed over, though, do look at the hardware requirements for OS X. Tiger (the current one) requires 256 MB of RAM and a built-in Firewire port officially. The 'Firewire' requirement is just a way of excluding Macs beyond a certain age, but AFAIK it can be made to run on those with some trickery; the RAM, on the other hand, you don't want to argue with - I don't know whether it would run at all with less, but it wouldn't be much fun. Either way, as far as I can see, if you Mac has a slot-loading CD drive, that's a fairly sure sign that it *will* work, as long as you add enough RAM.

Low End Mac should be helpful in finding out what's what and where to get the right memory upgrades...

Here's another thought, too: If you want to use an iPod with it, you'll want to have a big enough hard drive in the Mac to keep all your tunes on.

12:09 / 09.11.06

well, the hard drive has already got a ton of tunes on it, without any noticable difference on performance. Looking at the appole site, it seems that it was the last of the imacs not to have a dvd player, though it does have osx (which it shouldnt do according to the site..). mind you this all from memory, cos its at home and im writing from work..

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

13:06 / 09.11.06

Is there any (free) way I can associate keys to iTunes to make, say, F-keys become play/pause buttons no matter which application is "active" at the moment?

17:15 / 09.11.06

I think there are some built in, actually, or at least you can activate them from system prefs. I'll check when I get home.

What am I doing still at work anyway? Big hairy balls.

18:02 / 09.11.06

Has anybody else here got a macbook? Does the battery on their macbook run down noticeably faster when the macbook is sleeping than they did on the ibook?

I remember leaving my ibook on sleep for days and having hardly any battery loss, but frequently have to plug my macbook back in after leaving it for a day or so in sleep mode.

Is this a known problem or is my unit just a bit iffy?

19:30 / 09.11.06

Is there any way of going into the Apple Store on Regent Street and coming out again without wanting to poke some unhelpful, arrogant little fucker, with shockingly bad hair, in the eye?

Also, do the men on the door there stop everybody with a large bag of Apple products and have a quick look to check you haven't half inched anything? Happens every time either of us buys anything bigger than a plug, or so it seems.

Maybe we just look shifty.

19:34 / 09.11.06

It's the wig you wear, Clarice.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

19:44 / 09.11.06

"half inched?" Is that Apple slang?

19:53 / 09.11.06

Half inched = pinched = stolen. Cockney probably. I'm becoming a cockernee geezer! w00t!

I should wear the Clarice outfit to go shopping, .trampetunia, because I could fit several kilos of swag inside my borrowed brassiere.

I am actually a happy Mac Acolyte but every time I have to wend my way in and out of the fearsome Apple Store, I question whther it's worth it.

21:28 / 09.11.06

Yes, there is a way - become so immensely infuriated with the huge queues of students and teenagers who have "something wrong with the iPod they just got for their birthday, I don't know, it just won't put that album on" that your rage is entirely focussed on them rather than the staff. Helps to leave after one look at the fucking queue as well.

I bought mine at Micro Anvika by the way.

21:37 / 09.11.06

Matt: try looking at System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts. There are already shortcuts set up in iTunes if you go the "Controls" menu, but they might not be entirely as desired.

23:05 / 09.11.06

Do you really not have to worry about viruses on a Mac? What kind of security do you still need?

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

11:23 / 10.11.06

fridge: Thanks, but no dice. I click the plus, choose iTunes as the application, type "Play" as the menu command and assign a hotkey, but it doesn't recognize it. Nor will this work out of iTunes, I suspect.

15:01 / 10.11.06

Do you really not have to worry about viruses on a Mac?

No. Though the antivirus companies constantly try to pretend that you do, and come out with some overhyped new "virus" every few weeks which turns out to be nothing of the sort and never affect anyone.

You could, of course, still forward an infected attachment to a Windows user by mistake (if you're in the habit of forwarding random files to people). That's pretty much the only reason to have a virus checker - but AV software usually fucks up your system as well, Norton is a particularly evil example, so I never advise people to install it and to just be careful what they forward.

What kind of security do you still need?

Not much really. I don't even run the firewall. You'd actually have to go out of your way to expose yourself in the first place. No security will protect you against phishing or other net con games though.

15:02 / 10.11.06

Matt: er, I'm not sure then. I've never gotten application keys to work myself - one thing that I really like in Windows is global app launch keys, say Windows-E launching Explorer, that's very handy. Seeing as how I'm not doing much right now I might google about a bit for something that works.

15:07 / 10.11.06

This looks like it might be Up Your Alley:

SizzlingKeys

00:27 / 12.11.06

Why is my powerbook, a G4 (with 512 megs ram, if it matters), suddenly, like depowering all at once? I'll be chugging along with 40% battery left or so, then there'll be a slight "pop", the screen goes dead and the computer is totally inert. I can check the battery, and the little green lights still come on. When I turn the computer back on again, the clock's set back to 7-something pm in January, 1969, and whatever I was working on is gone, gone, gone.

If it's any clue, or related at all, the wireless network is also acting hinky. Plus, the power adapter/recharger dealie has a crack in the insulation near the end that plugs into the computer.

Is my battery kaput? Is there some other short circuit problem? Could it be software? (The hard drive is nearly full.)

06:52 / 12.11.06

Just quickly - how exactly can one get FinalCut to work around the apparently tricky problem of "Dropped Frames"? I've tried a couple of workarounds but, sadly, no dice...

08:53 / 12.11.06

grant, the fact that your date's resetting would imply that the battery on the motherboard's kaput. There's a like a watch battery (though a bit bigger) on the mobo itself which allows the machine to keep time even when it's switched off, and it enables the BIOS to remember any settings that have been changed from the default as well. I'm not convinced that the mobo battery dying would explain all of your symptoms there mind you, but it's a pretty safe bet for the date resetting back to default. They're not expensive things to replace and, on a desktop at least, not difficult to fit, though God alone knows what access you'll have to your laptop's innards.

10:40 / 12.11.06

On the alternative sources for Mac pourchasing tip - John Lewis is a good bet since they offer a free year long gaurentee inaddition to the standard year long apple gaurentee as well as promising to be 'never knowlingly undersold' - So they should be unbeatable on price...

10:39 / 14.11.06

The surly, distracted man at the Apple shop assured us that we needed a new battery. The big one, not the motherboard one.

Now, I'm idly wondering if the duct-taped power adapter/recharger might be at fault. Only idly.

10:57 / 14.11.06

Have you checked with the Apple site to see if it might be one of the ones up for recall. If it is they send you a new one for nothing...

11:17 / 14.11.06

Oh, and as for application launching, you MUST get Quicksilver. I never use anything else and really miss it on Windows.

14:36 / 14.11.06

I have QS and never quite understand why it's so handy. I like the dock better.

The battery isn't a recalled one -- we've gotten a few recall notices, but they're all for different serial numbers. Alas.

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