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 just saw this tip in an email from MacMost, and had to pass it along… it’s too good to miss.

There is a way to force quit an iOS app on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch without ever leaving the app. Hold down the sleep/wake button at the top of your device until the “Slide to power off” screen appears. Then, hold down the Home button for about 7 seconds. The currently running app will quit.

This may or may not be more convenient than double-tapping the Home button to see current apps, then tap and holding an icon until they all shake and show a red button (small red circle with horizontal white line through it), then pressing the app you want to quit). At least there’s another option. Thank you MacMost!

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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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A new attempt to steal data from Mac users is a bot called DevilRobber. The original version ran embedded in versions of Graphic Converter, but this one only pretends to be PixelMator, and contains none of the legitimate PixelMator code.

This new variant tries to steal and generate Bitcoins as the original did, but it also tries to steal passwords from 1Password (my favorite password utility) and grab system log files and Terminal command history files.

MacFixit has a more complete post here. Please protect yourself by only downloading software from legitimate sources… this and the previous version of DevilRobber are distributed as pirated software. If you download software from reputable sites, such as Download.com or MacUpdate.com, or from the Mac App store, you won’t run the risk of being infected with this trojan.

If you’re concerned about malware on the Mac, I use and recommend Intego Virusbarrier and Little Snitch to protect yourself.

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I was registering at a web site the other day, and it asked for an 8-character password. I used Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs…

insert rimshot>

A form of this was the first prize winner at the Scottish comedy championship… it’s not my fault!

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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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