OK, it’s an old trick, but I was reminded of it today. It’s particularly useful with Lion.

I for one do NOT like the light grey text used all too frequently, but it’s easy to read when you simply press Control-Option-Command-8. This changes the viewing mode to white-on-black, so instead of trying to read grey text on a white page you’ll see white text on black. Much easier to read, and when you’re done, simply press the keyboard command again to shift back to normal viewing.

Thanks to Ian Crew’s tip on MacInTouch!

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I subscribe to Mac Tip of the Week from Peachpit Press, and this week they had such a good one I have to share.

Force an Application to Quit

To give you a menu choice to force an application to quit, Option-press (don’t click) that application’s icon in the Dock.

Of course, the Command-Option-Escape key combination will bring up the Force Quit window, as will going to the menu item under the Apple menu. You can also force quit by opening Activity Monitor, selecting the application and clicking the “Quit Process” button. This tip provides a quicker, more direct way to force-quit an application, tho.

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Have you downloaded the newest version of iTunes, and set up iTunes Match yet? I did the other day, with trepedation and caution, but it worked out pretty well. I have about 20,000 tracks in my iTunes library, so I haven’t set up my iPhone or iPad to use Match yet, but that’s the next step.

My real interest was to upgrade the quality of CDs I ripped years ago at a lower-than-256 kps bitrate. I had a collection of over 400 CDs that I ripped over the course of a year shortly after iTunes made it possible, back when. Some are as low as 128kps, so the upgrade in quality is pretty major.

I was really concerned about deleting music that had been Matched, but it turned out to work perfectly when I followed the directions posted by Matt Elliott on MacFixit yesterday. How to use iTunes Match to upgrade audio quality spells out the easiest way to determine which tracks are available and in need of upgrading, and how to actually do it.

I started with one track I didn’t really care about and deleted it from my iTunes library (but didn’t trash the file). Immediately it was back with an icon in the “iCloud” column showing a cloud with downward pointing arrow. I highlighted the track and pressed Command – I to see the bitrate and other info, and sure enough, instead of the 160 kbs it was, now it showed 256.

Then I option-clicked on the track to downolad the track, which it did nicely, and I checked the folder in my iTunes library where it was stored, and sure enough, both versions of the track were there. I deleted the old one, and began to feel comfortable.

Then I set up the Smart Playlists as suggested in Matt’s post, followed his instructions, and it worked perfectly!

Oh, and artwork and ratings stayed intact, too!

Addendum: Here’s another page full of good info on iTunes Match from ars technica.

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Hard drives are made to last as long as the warranty these days… like most everything else. If your drive has a three year warranty, the likelihood of it working the full 3 years is very near 100%. That percentage will fall at an unknown rate after the warranty period ends. Your drive may last 5 years, or more, or it may die shortly after the three years are up. The longer it goes, the greater chance of failure.

So, along with death and taxes, you can add hard drive failure to the only things you can depend on happening. All drives fail. The trick is to replace them before they fail, AND to have a good backup so if you miss the trick, you can restore your data to a new drive.

One of the best articles on the subject I’ve yet found is a new post on Barkings – The Small Dog Apple Blog. If you want to know a bit more about your drive, how and why it works, and how and why it can fail, this is where to go.

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Apple released an updated support page listing shortcuts for all Mac OS X versions.

All of the key or key combinations are explained, and I encourage all users to adopt at least a few keyboard shortcuts, as keeping your fingers on the keyboard will increase your productivity considerably. Every time you have to use the mouse or trackpad to move the cursor to the menubar to save a document, or quit an application, takes a few more seconds than using a shortcut. Add all that up at the end of a day, or a week… it’s considerable.

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Stephen Hart posted on Macintouch today, with a great hint I’m reprinting here:

When you enter Time Machine, your entry point is context-sensitive. If you have a folder selected in the Finder, Time Machine will not show backups for the time before that folder existed.

Shift-Command-C is the shortcut for Go > Computer. That takes you to the root of the Finder hierarchy. Entering Time Machine then shows all backups. You can also click on the Desktop, as the Desktop folder always exists, whether it has any files in it or not.

You can also navigate in the Finder while in Time Machine as well.
Navigating to the Desktop folder will make all backups available.

An extreme example of this context sensitivity is entering Time Machine while Mail is the front application.

If you’ve ever entered Time Machine with a particular folder open, then navigated to another folder looking for an older file, and not found it… now you know why! Thank you, Stephen.

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There are a lot of changes in Lion, both in the interface and in the basics of the system. I’d love to list them all, but I haven’t found ‘em all yet, and others have done a great job of it before I’ve had the chance.

Some Changes In Lion is a list of some of the major changes, with links to articles explaining some of the changes.

A couple of important ones, in my opinion are the ability to encrypt your Time Machine backups – you DO have a TM backup, right? – and the hourly TM Snapshots that portables will take, and that desktops can be configured to take.

Snapshots are a convenient way to have a week’s worth of backups on your boot drive, so if you’re traveling and don’t have a backup drive, you have access to some backups, at least. Because Snapshots are on your boot drive, they will be gone if anything happens to your drive.

Lots of info regarding Time Machine are on this page, including all you want to know about Snapshots.

Another interesting page regarding Lion is Nine Things You Should Do After Installing OS X Lion explaining how you can change some of the changes back to what you’ve become accustomed to, and with some great tips.

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Apple is now selling a thumb drive installer on the Apple online store (and perhaps in brick/mortar stores as well) for $69.00.

The absence of a Lion install DVD has caused a bit of uproar (Lion, roar… never mind) with users who are concerned that if they need to reinstall their system, there’s no easy way to do it, and no way at all without a fast Internet connection.

Several sites published articles on how to create a DVD or flash drive installer, but this is the first official Apple release of a physical tool for the purpose.

If you want to roll your own, these articles may be useful:

How to create an OS X Lion Install Disc

How to make a bootable Lion install disc or drive

How to burn a Lion boot disc

Build your own Lion install USB thumb drive for cheap

I’ve created my own thumb drive installer, and it works.

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I installed Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Wednesday afternoon, on my clone drive, and played with it until about 11pm. Yesterday I installed it on my main drive, and struggled for a while.

It turns out that Glims made Safari very unstable, and when I figured that out, the constant crashes stopped. Updating Default Folder helped, too.

I’m liking Lion so far, especially when I figured out how to reverse scrolling (I use a Kensington Expert Mouse trackball) and realized that one can revert Mail appearance to the “classic” view in preferences.

Macworld.com, cnet.com, ArsTecnica.com and others are full of great posts describing new features, potential issues, and how-tos, so I won’t try to reinvent that particular wheel. One site, tho, was very helpful.

Five quick Lion tips to make the transition easier

Five quick Lion tips to make the transition easier is a very useful article posted on cnet.com with tips to change default Lion behavior to more closely match what we are used to in Leopard and Snow Leopard.

I hated the new Mail interface, but am sticking with it to see if I get used to it. Knowing I can switch back any time I want reduced my stress level considerably.

The User/username/Library folder is invisible in Lion, unless you change default behavior with a simple terminal command: “chflags nohidden ~/Library” without the quotes. Another method is to add the Library folder to the sidebar

Adobe products with Lion issues

Adobe has a knowledge base article listing issues and some fixes for using their products with Lion. The hidden library and lack of Java are potential issues, easily dealt with. Earlier Adobe apps written with PPC code won’t run any more, as Rosetta is not part of Lion code… the frameworks are no longer included in the OS. Product specific issues are listed, and most affect CS4 and earlier apps, except:

Photoshop CS3-5: Droplets don’t work

Premier Pro CS 5 and 5.5: Universal Counting Leader is missing countdown numbers

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iPhone Life Magazine’s tip of the week is a great time saver. Here’s how you can easily add a contact using the phone number:

How to Convert a Phone Number to a Contact
You can convert phone numbers into contacts very easily with the iPhone. You can even add an additional number to an existing contact. Here’s how you do it:

1. Tap on the Phone icon from your Home screen.
2. Tap on the Keypad option in the menu bar at the bottom of the screen.
3. Dial the phone number but don’t tap Call.
4. Instead, tap the Add Contact icon to the left of the Call button. (It’s the little man with a plus symbol beside it.)
5. Tap Create New Contact or Add to Existing Contact.

If you’re creating a new contact, the iPhone will prompt you to fill out your new contact’s information. When you’re done, tap on Save and you’ll go back to the keypad screen to proceed with the call if you wish.

There you have it. If you’d like to get the newsletter from iPhone Life magazine, you can subscribe on their site.

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