Mail Activity!

The Mail that comes with Leopard has a feature called "Mail Activity". What is displayed in this is mail that is being sent or received. It is very useful to see when a large email with attachments is finally sent. You can also see mail arriving before it is even displayed in your inbox. To see the "Mail Activity" window, just click on the arrow in the lower left corner (2nd button from the left).

Don't forget to update your bookmarks, download the new widget and check out the new website at http://www.tips4mac.info/ Tips will soon only be posted on the new website.

The way Firefox handles mailto!

By default, mailto links (websites that integrate a link to an email address) are loaded in Mail and it is not very useful if you only use webmail. In the Firefox preferences, you can change that to Gmail (website), Yahoo Mail (website), or another application. It is under "Applications" and the content type is "mailto".

Don't forget to update your bookmarks, download the new widget and check out the new website at http://www.tips4mac.info/ Tips will soon only be posted on the new website.

Color of highlighted text!

It is possible to customize the color of highlighted text. It is in "System Preferences", under "Appearance". The setting is "Highlight Color". The change won't just happen with highlighted text, but also when you select files and you take screenshots.

Don't forget to update your bookmarks, download the new widget and check out the new website at http://www.tips4mac.info/ Tips will soon only be posted on the new website.

Shapes in Numbers!

Using the "Shapes" icon in the toolbar to select a shape will automatically add a default shape that you can then resize and adjust. To actually draw the shape instead of modifying a default version, you want to hold down "Option" while clicking on the "Shapes" icon in the toolbar.

Don't forget to update your bookmarks, download the new widget and check out the new website at http://www.tips4mac.info/ Tips will soon only be posted on the new website.

The buffer size in iTunes!

As you might know if you read my Tweets, my internet connection is not always as great as it should be and watching previews on iTunes doesn't really work well, because unlike YouTube when the buffers runs out, iTunes just closes the preview window and returns to the information page. I finally figured out how to fix this problem in the iTunes preferences. It is under "Advanced","Streaming Buffer Size". Switching it to "Large" really improved the way previews play on my internet connection, but if you have a super speedy connection, changing the buffer size to Small can actually make videos start playing faster.

Don't forget to update your bookmarks, download the new widget and check out the new website at http://www.tips4mac.info/ Tips will soon only be posted on the new website.

Quit the Finder (not force quit)!

I didn't even know this was possible until I found the feature in OnyX (OS X maintenance & optimization application). You can enable an additional "Quit Finder" menu item in the Finder menu. It is totally different than the "Force Quit Finder" feature that will quit the Finder and relaunch it immediately. This will actually quit the Finder ant it won't relaunch until you load it by clicking on the icon in the Dock. It looks pretty great because the icons on the desktop are not displayed and the Finder doesn't take up any resources. Here is where you can add this feature in OnyX:

1. Go to the "Parameters" tab and click on the "Finder" tab.
2. Check the checkbox next to "Show Quit item" under "Finder Menu:".

You can download OnyX here from MacUpdate.

Don't forget to update your bookmarks, download the new widget and check out the new website at http://www.tips4mac.info/ Tips will soon only be posted on the new website.

Remove stationery in Mail!

The Leopard version of Mail added the "Stationery" feature. One thing that isn't obvious about how to use the feature is if you have selected a stationery, how do you remove it to go back to a text only email. Here is how:

1. Once you clicked "Show Stationery", choose the "Stationery" category.
2. Click on "Original". Mail will switch back to the text only template.

Don't forget to update your bookmarks, download the new widget and check out the new website at http://www.tips4mac.info/ Tips will soon only be posted on the new website.