TechTalk
Thoughts on using IT in NC Cooperative Extension
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Wednesday April 25, 2007 |
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Mac Software Updates
Keep Software Updates Current Please help EIT by reminding the Mac Users in your office to keep their computer's software updates current. Our Help Desk often discovers pending software updates when they're helping someone resolve a problem. Often the updates contain bug fixes and feature enhancements that would stop the problems from occurring in the first place. So the next time that software update window opens on your desktop, please take the time to do the update. You'll be happy you did! Upgrade to Firefox 2 Have you added any software to your system yet? If not, here's a suggestion to start with. There is a wonderful, newer version of Firefox. Firefox 2 has an abundance of updated features, including a spell checker that works within web based forms, including the county web site application! Read about the new features and download the update from: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/features.html Here are the installation instructions: 1) Download Firefox from the above web site 2) Quit your current version of Firefox, if it's running 3) Double-click on the disk image (.dmg icon) to run it 4) Drag the Firefox icon to your Applications folder 5) Replace the older version with the newer one 6) Drag the disk image and disk icon files to the trash If you have any questions, please contact your IM Agent or call the CES Help Desk at 919-513-7000 or email ces_help@ncsu.edu. Posted by jdorner ( Nov 19 2008, 10:42:58 AM EST / Apr 25 2007, 03:38:07 PM EDT ) Permalink Comments [0] Trackback: http://blogs.lib.ncsu.edu/techtalk/entry/mac_software_updates
Pages 2 tips
Using "Comments" in Pages You can 'attach' comments to any part of your Pages document. Simply select the object to which you want to attach the comment and then click on the "Comment" button on the toolbar or use Insert -> Comment. The comment will appear out to the left of the page. WARNING: if you insert comments, the "View -> Show Comments" becomes active and when you print the document, the pages will be reduced to allow space for the comments to print in a column on the left of the paper - even if you have deleted all the comments. To be able to print the document like it is laid out, you need to go select "View -> Hide Comments" before you print. Sending a Pages document To send a Pages document to another Mac user with Pages installed, you must 'archive' or 'zip' the pages file. In reality, what appears to be the Pages file is a folder with the images, thumbnails and contents files. If you attach the Pages file to an email message, the recipient will not get anything. To archive the file so you can send it, right-click on the pages file and select "Make Archive of filename". This creates a .zip file that has everything the recipent needs - assuming they have Pages installed on their Mac. Note: if you are using Thunderbird and you open the zip file with Stuffit automatically, the zip file will be downloaded to the "downloaded files" folder specified in Safari Preferences (the "temp" or "downloads" folder on the NCCE Macs), then the file is 'unziped' into that same folder. You'll need to open the file from there. To send a Pages document to a Windows user or a Mac user without Pages installed, create a PDF of the document from the Print dialog window. If you have any questions or problems, please contact your IM Agent or the EIT HelpDesk. Posted by jdorner ( Nov 19 2008, 10:42:58 AM EST / Apr 25 2007, 01:08:13 PM EDT ) Permalink Comments [2] Trackback: http://blogs.lib.ncsu.edu/techtalk/entry/pages_2_tips
Navigating through web pages
One of my pet peeves with the Mac was the inability to use the tab key to select checkboxes, dropdown select menus and the submit button in forms when browsing the web with Firefox. Recently, I discovered (I believe it changed with one of the recent updates) the ability to do this. However, by default, it is not enabled. You have to turn it on by going to the System Preferences Keyboard & Mouse options. At the bottom of the Keyboard Shortcuts tab is the option to "Press tab to move the keyboard focus beween All controls".  Now, when filling out a form in a web page, I can use the tab key to move from one field to the next. If the field is a checkbox, I press the space bar to check/uncheck it. If it is a dropdown menu, I type the first letter of the option I want to select. If there are several with the same first letter, I keep typing the first letter until the option I want is selected. If the filed is a text box, I just type my text and press the tab key to move to the next. Finally, when I tab to the Submit button, I press enter to submit. Once you get used to using the tab key to move around web based forms, you'll love it! More tips for moving around in Firefox:
Posted by jdorner ( Nov 19 2008, 10:42:58 AM EST / Apr 25 2007, 10:15:31 AM EDT ) Permalink Comments [0] Trackback: http://blogs.lib.ncsu.edu/techtalk/entry/navigating_through_web_pages |