iLifeZone Episode 34
Fireside Chat, E-mails, Etc.
Run Time: 54:08

Scott Bourne www.podango.com and www.applephoneshow.com
Derrick Story www.thedigitalstory.com
Colleen Wheeler O'Reilly Digital Media

Just a bit of everything today. A more relaxing pace appropriate for a Saturday release...

Scott Shaw writes in. He was listening to the Switcher show and wants to expand on the tip about Cmd-Tab switching apps. If you let go of the tab, but leave your finger on the CMD key and hit H, it will hide the app you've selected. If you hit Q, it will quit the app you've selected. You may need a few extra fingers, but this is a great tip. Thanks Scott!

Colleen: If you press CMD Tab quickly, it'll switch between the two most recently used Applications. You can repeatedly press Cmd Tab to switch quickly without waiting for the switch bar to come up.

Piggyback from a listener!!! Troy D. Murray writes in about Cmd Tab switching: If you use the Cmd Key Plus the Tilde, it'll cycle through open windows in the current application. Derrick prefers Tabs to Windows (Vinny: I prefer anything to Windows.) Derrick likes Expose for this same purpose. Scott uses Expose with his mouse which has a dedicated button. Colleen points out that turning on the hot corners can be fun, and with dual monitors it's torturous. Derrick isn't a fan.

Chris writes in: Chris Breen says Mac laptops don't have a right click. On newer models, you can put two fingers on the pad and click to get a right click. He uses Preview to read multiple PDF's. He wants to know how to follow web links in PDFs in Preview. We'll look into that for you, Chris. We can't seem to get it to work either. You may need to grab Acrobat Reader to get it working. If you have any suggestions for Chris, please e-mail us at info@ilifezone.com.

Colleen likes Preview too, but doesn't like the way it's set as the default for certain kinds of files (for example PSD Photoshop files). Colleen's new MacBook has enticed her to use the actual Apps to open PSD files because they run fast enough now, but she keeps Preview handy when she just wants to take a quick look at a file. Preview pretty much opens everything. Derrick likes PDFPen because of all the neat things it lets you do.

Tom Brody left us a voicemail: He wants to suggest two topics: 1. A show on nothing but info on Preview. 2. Another show on QuickTime Pro and all the things that can be done with it. We'll work on that for you, Tom... Colleen likes the idea because she bought QuickTime pro and has no idea why she did it (it's the hypnotic power of Derrick, Colleen).

E-Mail from Neil Bernstein: Happy with the photography show. Would love to hear more about Workflow because he wants to know what it really means to an amateur. He would like to hear more about workflow as it pertains to iPhoto, seeing as he doesn't use LightRoom or Aperture. Derrick's jonesing for a new iPhoto and Scott expects it in the fall with Leopard. Derrick points out that Workflow is really just going from point A to point B and isn't really anything more than that. He's really big on rating images then only working on the "good stuff" and so on. Workflow is an individual series of steps, and not every flow will work for every person. Scott says that the basic recipe for digital photo is what looks good to you. There's no set recipe and no magic bullet. If it looks good to you, you've done your job. Colleen thinks that it's also the process that all your images go through and how to make that as efficient as possible and lets you get on with your life. Scott doesn't rate all his photos because they're all five-star (and he's so modest!)

Tavita Wilson congratulates us on having a woman on the show. She appreciates that we all get along like we're friends, and she wants to know why it's so hard for elderly people and non-technical people to take the leap into computers. She has daughters who are afraid because they're into tech more than the other girls they hang around. Colleen says the age thing is overrated. Her young son is fearless when it comes to tech. She thinks that most people who aren't comfortable with tech are probably uncomfortable because it came around after they were set in their ways and they're afraid to break something. As far as girls v. boys, she sees that changing quite a bit. Colleen, for example, carries two laptops with her (wow!).

Scott, Colleen and Derrick are all about not using anything Rosetta anymore because of the performance hit. Colleen tried to open a Word Doc on her new MacBook and the test drive opened. Scott says to immediately remove the test drive first before you do anything else with a new Mac. Colleen points out that with the Pages test drive on a Mac, Pages should open up, not the test drive of Word. Scott wishes they would just charge more for a Mac and throw in Pages and iWork. Scott wanted to know why Colleen paid extra for black. Her answer is that it's gorgeous. She loves the Marware protection pack and so does Derrick and Scott. It's her first new self-bought Mac! Derrick, Scott, and Colleen love the keyboard (Vinny: I'd have to agree... I have a black MacBook also and it's awesome). Colleen also has her trackpad set to turn off when she plugs in a mouse to save from stray marks on the trackpad. Colleen also notes that the positioning of the pad is different than it is on the MacBook Pro. Derrick prefers the MacBook keyboard to the MacBook Pro keyboard. Colleen likes the feel of it also.

Colleen has two revelations as far as what you get with a MacBook and a MacBook Pro. Revelation #1: No FireWire 800 (MacBook's have FireWire 400). Revelation #2: No internal card slot (No EVDO cards, and no Express Cards). Don't fret Colleen, Sprint and Verizon both offer EVDO USB dongles. I have the Verizon one and it's RevA which means it's faster than most of the Express Cards / PCMCIA cards out there. Keep in mind, the MacBook is also quite a bit less expensive.

Scott points out that it's a matter of weeks until the iPhone launches. Derrick says he needs it and he's having a heck of a time waiting for it. Scott thinks that the iPhone is going to hurt laptop sales because it does so much and he primarily does e-mail which the iPhone does. Derrick doesn't think it'll hurt laptop sales, but that the iPhone will just be another spoke in the digital hub. Your Mac / Laptop will still be the center of everything. One thing he agrees with, though, is that the iPhone will be great for when you're on the plane waiting to leave the runway and he won't need to do it with a big MacBook Pro. He could do it now, but he thinks current phones mostly suck. Scott doesn't care for the Treo, and neither does Derrick. Scott says the second happiest day was when he bought his Treo and the first happiest was when he got rid of it. Derrick points out that Ben Long loves his Treo.

Scott points out that you can find out all you want to know about the iPhone from Applephoneshow.com!

Ray Biker says: He's a double switcher. He switched from the Apple IIc to the PC and back to Macs! He got an iMac and says it's a far cry from his previous computers. He likes to make big pictures. You can resize your pictures with Automator actions. If you go to Automator.us you'll find a ton of pre-made actions you can use in Automator to do all kinds of things. No code involved. You link one action to another and you're ready to roll! Just about any Apple app you may want to use has some functions that can work with Automator.

Mark Laidlaw: Liked the photography episode but thinks we missed one thing. Moving from the Auto setting on a camera. He wants to learn how to use Aperture and Shutter. Colleen recommends The Digital Story. Derrick points out that a lot of people don't realize that the "P" mode on the camera stands for Professional. Most event photographers use "P" most of the time to ensure they get the right settings. Scott recommends checking out the scene modes built into your camera and seeing if they do the job for you. There's no shame in using those settings. You can also make note of the settings those presets use, and then you can make those adjustments in the manual sections.

Scott wants to point out that you can also get plenty of information on your camera from the owner's manual. Derrick points out that there's now a discussion forum on The Digital Story too, so that's a good resource, along with the podcast he does weekly.

Techmate writes in: Re: The tip in our Tip Monster about enclosing URL's in brackets in e-mail: You can achieve the same effect in OmniWeb which will send links to your current page, but in the body of the e-mail it'll enclose them in brackets automatically.

Richard: Doesn't want to use all the songs in his library on his iPod and doesn't like the Sync Checked Song option works. He uses the comments section of the songs with a NOT ON IPOD in the comments, then makes a smart playlist that only has songs that don't have that in the comments and that's the only playlist that syncs to the iPod.

Derrick discovered that he likes having different iTunes libraries. He has a basic music library on the laptop, and a hard drive with other libraries. If you hold down the Option key when you start iTunes, you can select which library you want to load.

Important note: Our show is no longer on Libsyn. If you still subscribe on Libsyn, please use the new subscribe link below or visit Podango.com.

This episode was sponsored by Overstock.com and ShieldZone.

The next show lands on June 1, 2007. For more information email us at info@ilifezone.com.

Thanks also to Vincent Ferrari for the shownotes!

Subscribe free of charge to the iLifeZone podcast at the iTunes Store