Startup feature in Mac

Where is the startup feature in leopard? In PC, whatever you put inside the Startup feature, the application will be running when you start the PC. In Mac, you will find this feature inside System Preferences.

How? Go to System Preferences > Account > Login items. Click the ‘+’ sign to add application that should run when you start your Mac, and check the checkbox if you want to run it in the background.

Now, if you need to temporarily disable this feature, meaning you don’t want this applications to run when start up, press the Shift key when you start your Mac, and release it when the Apple logo comes out. This start up wil take longer, though, about 3-4 times longer than usual. This is very handy if you need to trouble shoot your Mac.

Open an application from the App folder and close its folder

When you open an application by double clicking or Comand o from the Finder, you can close the Finder as soon as the application is launched. 

Press Option key when you are opening an application from the Finder. This will open the application and close the Finder automatically.

And just for the fun, while you are it, after you highlight the application name press shift  + option + command + o. This will do the same as above, but in slow motion.

 

Keep the desktop icons arranged by name

Do you want to arrange icons on the desktop by name, date created, date modified, size, kind or label automatically? What you need to do is just Right click (Control + Click, or tap by two fingers if you have set it up on the System Preference) anywhere on the desktop, when the popup menu comes up, just press Option key. The Arrange By menu will change to Keep Arrange By, and choose whatever suite you.

So, everytime there is a new icon on the desktop, it will be automatically sorted by the one that you have choosen.

To cancel the automatically arrangement, just the the same procedure, and the Keep Arrange By will change to Arrange By.

Hey, Preview.app can do thumbnailing, too!

If you are coming from PC world and used to use ACDSEE, which can view images in thumbnails, now in Leopard, Preview.app is a real powerhouse.

When you are in folder containing pictures, just select all (Command + a) or just drag them all. Press Command + o.

Preview.app can view JPEG, TIFF, PICT, GIF, BMP, PNG, SGI, TGA, EPS, PDF and can even play animated gif, too!

Preview.app can crop, rotate, adjust color, adjust size. For those who need to see lens setting of the camera, ISO setting, focus mode, the flash was on/off, now you can do that in Preview.app!

And one more thing, did you know that Preview.app can now cutting people out of the background?
Here is how, open an image > click ‘Select’ > ‘Instant Alpa’ shown in the images on the left. Now here is the best part, just click the background area that you want to eliminate. Click and drag to eliminate more area when needed. When you are done, just press Enter/Return.

Choose File > Save as if you don’t want to replace the original image

Drawit

Drawit is an easy too use graphic application for Leopard and Tiger. Out of the box, it contains a number of ready-to-use tools, for you too edit, stack, or mask images. What makes it different from other graphic or editing tools is that mainly anyone can do it, that is how easy it is. Yes there are a few things you must learn before actually use it but, you can find guides, and more at the website. Most features that the Application has you’d normally see in other graphic/editing tools. But what is on here is what makes it unique.

The features are simple there’s the paint tool, and more, (see below). The main features though, are,

• Vector Tool

• Bitmap Edit

• Masks

• Layer-based

Those are just some of there many features, for more check out there website. You can Purchase or Download Draw it at there website, Get DrawIt

Delete forward and backward

For new Mac users or we call them the switcher, the ‘Delete’ key is associated with the ‘Backspace’ and there is no Delete forward key in Mac while there is one in PC. In Mac, to delete backward, just hit the ‘Delete key’, while deleting forward, just press ‘fn’ + ‘Delete’ keys.

There are more while you’re at it. Try pressing
1. ‘Control + a’ to move the cursor to the beginning of the sentence
2. ‘Control + e’ to move the cursor at the end of the sentence
3. ‘Control + d’ to delete forward (same as ‘fn + delete’)
4. ‘Control + k’ to delete the sentence start from the beginning to the end of the sentence.
5. ‘Control + o’ to insert a new paragraph, just like Return
6. ‘Control + t’ to transport one letter to the right
7. ‘Option + delete’ to delete one word to the left. This is very handy when you are typing the word and has the typo in it.

Does UNIX ring you a bell?