Macspiration #71
The Appearance System Preference

For the past couple of weeks I have been discussing the different System Preferences, and how you can use them to customize your Mac. The Appearance System Preference allows you to change how parts of the computer interface look and act. It also has a lot of parts, which is why I chose to discuss it in its own article.

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Macspiration 66
Digital Imagery Tech Terms – 3


Many people will be getting a new, or their first, digital camera this holiday season. With that in mind, I thought it was a good time for a list of digital photography and digital imagery tech terms. Keep in mind, these are not dictionary definitions. These are terms explained in a way that your grandmother (at least my grandmother) can understand.

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Macspiration 62
Google’s Online Office Options 

For years the standard in word processing and spreadsheet programs has been a program housed on your computer’s hard drive. You run the program off the computer, and save everything on your computer or an external device. Recently, online applications have started popping up and they are starting to become a nice, viable, and free option.

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Macspiration 63
Online Shopping Quick Tips

With the holiday shopping season in full gear I thought I’d make a list of internet shopping tips for this installment of Macspiration. If you are like me, you’ll be doing a lot of gift shopping on the internet and avoiding those lines at the stores.

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Macspiration 62
Expose and a Click-Wheel Mouse

In my opinion, one of the best features that was added to OSX in Panther is Expose. With the push of a key on your keyboard you can see all of the open windows on your computer, and click the one you want to switch to. If you are like me, I don’t want to stop working and reach for the F9 key. I want a quicker way to run this feature of Expose. Well, if you have a click-wheel mouse or a Mighty Mouse this Macspiration is for you

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Macspiration 61
Bouncing Email


SPAM, or junk email is a growing problem that is not going away. For some it is worse than others. There are several ways you can fight SPAM. Some of these methods are free, others will cost you money. One is totally free, and long dismissed by many. This is the bounce feature of Apple’s Mail. I used to dismiss it too, until recently.

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Macspiration 58
Fun Shareware That Won’t Break Your Bank

I usually recommend freeware, or free software, in Macspiration. This week I’ve decided to stray from that path, and suggest three small pieces of shareware that are just fun. Not only are they fun, but they are cheap, too. You can buy all three of these programs for less than $30. All of these programs have downloadable demos, so try them out!

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Macspiration 57
Ejecting Media on a Mac


If you are new to a Mac, for whatever reason, you might thing why write an article about ejecting media on a Mac? You only have to pull out a thumb drive or push the button on the CD tray to eject it, right? Wrong. Ejecting media on a Mac is a little more complicated than that, especially if you are used to using a PC.

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Macspiration 56
URL Shortening

Every time I email a long website address (URL) from my Mac to a PC the URL link usually breaks. I have been trying to find a solution to this for a while now, and a post at Apple’s Discussions site many months ago got me nowhere. Here is a solution

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Macspiration 55
Copy and Paste


Believe it or not, there are still many people who barely get by using a computer. If you say “Copy and Paste” to them, they will probably look at you like a deer caught in headlights. So, I’ve decided to make a new extension of Macspiration called “Back to Basics.” For this first edition, I’ll talk about COPY and PASTE.

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