Five Quick Tips to Speed Up Your Mac

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Five Quick Tips to Speed Up Your Mac

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Whether we want it to happen or not, our systems all get a little sluggish from time to time. Sometimes it's a full hard drive slowing ...

1. Do a widget inventory.

Widgets are easy to forget about. On a rainy afternoon you may add half-a-dozen just to check them out and then completely forget that they exist by the next morning. But some of those widgets will keep running even when you’re not using your dashboard. It’s always best to keep your widgets, like the rest of your digital life, stripped down to only what you’re actually using.

2. Declutter your desktop.

Windows users enjoy the luxury of having a small army of icons cluttering up their desktop without any ill effects. Us Mac users aren’t so lucky. Each icon on your desktop is treated by OSX as its own window. Same goes for the items on your dock. And while having a handful of icons on your desktop probably won’t make a noticeable impact on overall performance, a full desktop will. Time to get those organized and off the desktop! (just a sidenote, this one shouldn’t help Leopard users. It looks like OSX 10.5 finally tackled this problem.)

3. Keep an eye on the Activity Monitor.

While this may sound like common sense, you’d be surprised at how many little programs are eating up big chunks of your memory. The massive slowdown that prompted my most recent clean up was the result of a tiny little background application I used for PS3 media streaming eating up more than half of my systems available resources. While I don’t have a fix for the program, disabling did provide an easy fix for my system. Had I not checked the Activity Monitor I would have been losing my mind over this one.

4. Turn off unused features.

Remember that time last Spring you turned on Bluetooth to get that picture off your mobile phone? Or that roommate that wanted to jack your signal via internet sharing? Did you remember to turn them off? Take a hunt through your System Preferences and make sure everything you don’t actually use is disabled (but if you’re not sure, and we can’t stress this enough, don’t disable it. We’d hate to see you switch off something you needed and not be too sure on how to get it back).

5. Delete unused preference panes.

Every now and then we download programs that install preference panes, and then forget all about them. The real problem? Lot’s of these will load in the background at startup. Luckily it should be as easy as a right click to remove. If it’s not you can always manually delete them by going to / Library / PreferencePanes.

A lot of this is probably common sense, but it never hurts to see it spelled out. What tips and tricks have you found help you get the best performance out of your Mac?

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10 Must-Have Toolbar Buttons for Thunderbird 3

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Source: makeuseof.com

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Concepts:

thunderbird, toolbar, folders, accounts, extension, MakeUseOf, windows, Guide, exit, custom, Editors, Mac, filters, install, Tina.

Article Summary:

Are you wasting too much time going through Thunderbird's menus to accomplish simple tasks?

Can you never remember the keyboard shortcuts?

It may be time to install some visual shortcuts.

Thunderbird toolbar buttons provide one-click access to some of Thunderbird's most useful features.

In addition, there are buttons that add new functionality that you would otherwise miss out on.

Here are 10 toolbar buttons for Thunderbird 3 that you must have!

To add the buttons, you need to> right-click onto your Thunderbird navigation bar or toolbar and select> Customize...

1. Get all mails

Thunderbird 3 does contain a Get Mail button.

However, it takes two clicks to get mail for all your accounts.

If you don't ever check mails for just one account, you should get this button.

It skips the selection and automatically fetches new mail from all your accounts.

2. Remove Duplicate Messages (Alternate)

With this extension, you can search and remove duplicate messages.

By clicking the little arrow in the bottom right, you can set the comparison criteria.

These include author, recipients, CC list, status flags, message ID, numbers of lines in message, send time, size, subject, folder, and body.

In the example below I picked author as the sole criteria.

The extension searches all folders of one eMail account.

3. Mark All Read

Sometimes you have this odd unread message in a random folder or you received a dozen eMails you just want to read later.

Now you can skip searching or clicking each and every message, just hit the Mark All Read button.

4. Restart Thunderbird

Thunderbird 3 provides a restart option only after installing a new addon.

This button lays the decision when to restart Thunderbird into your hands or rather at the tip of your finger.

5. Exit Button

To properly close Thunderbird, you need to go through> File> Exit.

Sure, closing Thunderbird via the Windows' "close window" button is much quicker, but it rarely shuts the application down.

Thunderbird will continue to run in the background.

The Exit button puts the Exit option directly into your toolbar and saves you one click.

6. New Tab Button

Thunderbird 3 supports tabs. I've even listed the 5 Extensions For Tabbed Email Browsing in Thunderbird 3.

If you enjoy using the internal Thunderbird browser, you will find the New Tab Button extension very useful.

Be sure to have a look at the options for this extension.

Here you can define where the button should be added, among other options.

7. Xpunge

The Thunderbird profile folder tends to grow very large.

In part that's because eMail are never really deleted.

If you want to make sure all your deleted eMails are really gone forever, you will have to compact your folders.

Xpunge adds a toolbar button to empty the trash folder and compact folders in one or multiple accounts in one go.

8. Filter Button

Filters are rules, based on which mails are sorted into different folders.

This button lets you run your filters with one click.

Also, check out How to Set Up Message Filters In Thunderbird.

9. Toolbar Buttons

Tired of downloading one extension after another?

Try this one, which comes with 50 buttons for Thunderbird and many more for Firefox and Sunbird.

It contains a ton of super useful buttons.

Moreover, the extension provides options to finetune its buttons.

You can select which language the translate button should use, set a "favorite page", toggle proxy, or set news and mail client paths.

10. Custom Buttons

Custom Buttons allows you to convert bookmarklets into buttons or otherwise use it to build, maintain, import, and export custom toolbar buttons.

In case you can't be bothered or are lacking the skills, you can use this extension to import existing buttons provided on the Custom Buttons² website.

Which Thunderbird toolbar button is your favorite?

For me, using the Windows close button sometimes does close Thunderbird down properly and sometimes it doesn't, so it still runs in the background.

That's why I found the exit button a quick and safe way to shut it down with just one click.

As for the Get Mail button, it's fine if you have just one account set up.

In that case clicking Get Mail will get your mail for that account.

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Image via Wikipedia

How Google Chrome OS Could Beat Windows

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Source: pcworld.com

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If Google really wants to compete with Microsoft, it needs to join 'em to beat 'em.
Michael Scalisi, PC World

Google recently stated that it is developing a new Linux-based OS called Chrome to run on both netbooks and desktops. In order for Google to seriously challenge Microsoft’s dominance, it needs two things. First, it needs to be seriously awesome. Second, it needs to be compatible with Windows Apps.

I must confess that when I heard about the OS, my first thought was “Oh great, just what we need, another Linux distro.” Then I realized two things: Apple has already demonstrated that its possible to build an awesome and unique OS based on UNIX, and, this is Google we’re talking about.

I believe that the Chrome OS can be awesome. That it’s named Chrome is telling. For those who haven’t used the Chrome browser yet, it’s incredibly fast, extremely simple and intuitive, yet strangely powerful. It gives you what you need before you ask for it based on what you’ve done in the past. All within an attractive, simple interface.

The Google Chrome OS is likely to be just like that. I’d expect the file system to resemble Gmail, using labels instead of folders. I’d expect eye-candy to be at a minimum and for performance to be highly optimized. I’d expect bloat to be ripped out by its roots and hastily discarded. It will capitalize on the cloud-computing model and leverage Google’s existing Web services. Imagine turning your computer on, and within 10 seconds you’re browsing the Web. That would be awesome.

All this might be enough to make a dent in the netbook market. After all, people might be willing to sacrifice the ability to use their Windows apps on a computer that was never meant to be anything more than a cheap and small web appliance. Never mind that consumers have already rejected Linux on the netbook.

Even if Chrome OS is utterly mind-blowing, if it lacks Windows application compatibility, it will merely be competing for a share of the high single-digit to low double-digit market share that Apple and Linux currently battle over. I highly doubt this is Google’s intention.

Windows dominates because it has become the lowest common denominator for application compatibility. The vast majority of commercial desktop application developers write for Windows because that’s what 90 percent of all consumers use. Consumers choose it because they invariably need to use some application that runs only on Windows. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle that needs something more than just a better competing OS to break.

As great of an idea cloud computing is, it isn’t going to eliminate the need for local apps anytime soon. If Google wants the Chrome OS to have any shot at desktop dominance, it needs be able to run Windows apps.

There are a couple of different ways to approach this. One possible alternative is to dump all sorts of resources into Wine development. This would be great since it would also give Linux and OS X a boost. Unfortunately, it will be nearly impossible to improve Wine to the point where it achieves anywhere near 100 percent Windows application compatibility.

The more likely alternative is to enable the Chrome OS to run Windows apps virtually like what is currently possible with VMware Fusion or Parallels. Of course the challenge here is that this will still require a Windows license.

The way I envision it, people will install the Chrome OS on their Windows PCs. Chrome will then repartition your drive, install its own boot loader, and set itself as the default OS. This is what most Linux distributions do already.
Users will then boot their computer into Google’s OS, and within seconds be able to use the Chrome browser and web-based apps. When the user needs a Windows app, they click on the icon for it and Chrome loads Windows in the background. The app might take a minute or so to load, but the process will be transparent otherwise. Just like VMware fusion or Parallels.

After Chrome OS finds its way onto a few million desktop computers, application developers will start porting Windows apps over to Chrome. Once Chrome is available on a majority of computers, developers will develop for Chrome first and Windows will quickly slip into obscurity. Give this process about a decade.

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Michael Scalisi is an IT manager based in Alameda, California.

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Must Have Resources for the Web Developer's Toolbox

Fuel Your Creativity - Must Have Resources for the Web Developer's Toolbox

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Must Have Resources for the Web Developer's Toolbox

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If you are a web designer, especially if you are fairly new, you search around for the best and easiest tools to do the tasks you want to do. Here is a summary of this really helpful article.

Summary:

In every creative field, there are certain tools that one always keeps handy in order to get the job done.

As developers (who also design) the toolbox inventory needs to be broad to encompass all the necessary areas to keep you moving and productive.

Below is a list of the resources that we felt should be included in any developer's toolbox.

We have broken it down into different categories to help you keep your tools organized a little bit better.

We hope that the list proves useful.

GIMP is a close second whose price you can't beat (free), especially for web designers who don't need all of the features of Photoshop.

Graybit is an online accessibility testing tool designed to visually convert a full-color web page into a grayscale rendition for the purpose of visually testing the pageâ¬(TM)s perceived contrast.

It returns a set of hue, saturation and tint/shade variations of your color, and suggests color schemets based on your color's complementary color, split complementary colors, and other variations.

FavIcon Generator allows you to easily create a favicon from an image.

The Grid System is an ever-growing resource where graphic designers can learn about grid systems, the golden ratio and baseline grids.

The 960 Grid System is an effort to streamline web development workflow by providing commonly used dimensions, based on a width of 960 pixels.

jQuery is a fast and concise JavaScript Library that simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid web development.

The jQuery Visual Cheat Sheet is an useful and practical 6 page reference to jQuery 1.3 for web designers and developers containing the full jQuery API reference with detailed descriptions and some sample code.

jQuery Plugins contains plugins, extensions and tutorials developed by jQuery contributors for the jQuery JavaScript Library.

Code Beautifier is a free online CSS formatter, optimiser, and parser.

Notepad++ is an open source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages.

TextWrangler is a powerful and richly featured tool for composing, modifying, and transforming text stored in plain-text files for Mac.

The WordPress Codex is the place to go if you have any WordPress related questions.

The Spoon Browser Sandbox allows you to run any browser directly from the web.

IETester is a free WebBrowser that allows you to have the rendering and javascript engines of IE8, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5 on Windows 7, Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process.

Web Developer's Tools for Firefox is a collection of firefox plugins to speed up the development process.

WampServer is a Windows web development environment which allows you to create web applications with Apache, PHP and the MySQL database.

CSS Tricks Code Snippets is a large repository of useful code snippets in the areas of HTML, CSS, JavaScript (raw), JavaScript (jQuery), PHP, and WordPress.

Angies list includes 26 items in all make sure you check it out at: Must Have Resources for the Web Developer's Toolbox

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Angie is a freelance web and graphic designer who brings her love of community to the online design collective as co-editor of Fuel Your Creativity.

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My Favorite Free HTML Editor: Windows -- Notepad++ -- Mac -- Editra

I found this in a the Site Sell Private forum that I am a member of, I think you should be able to click through to the article, but if you can't just leave a comment telling me about the problem:

Image by fzurell via Flickr

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Site Build It! Forums :: View topic - My Favorite Free HTML Editor

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Karen E from simply-kids-play.com

Nothing happens until something moves...

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My Grandson told me about Notepad ++. It is a free HTML editor.

http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm

You can see what things look like by using Run and then choosing the Browser you want to check.

It leaves no stray or awkward codes as the WYSIWYG ones do.

Check it out.

Karen
www.simply-kids-play.com

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PS: For those wanting a Mac HTML editor:
"I just checked with my Grandson again about a Mac program for HTML. He said he likes http://www.editra.org/. You might want to check it out. It also works in windows. It is free. I haven't tried it though."

Karen
www.simply-kids-play.com

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How Switching To a Mac Can Save You Countless Productive Hours

Image via Wikipedia

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Source: Computer Repair And PC Repair London

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Whether you are an expert computer user or not, you have probably been burned by your computer in the past. For some a computer virus could have wiped out your hard drive, or completely taken control of your web browser. For others, you might have been running an application only to have it crash and lose your data. So what is the solution?

There is a solution to many of the common computer problems: switch to an Apple computer. Although Apple and Microsoft have always competed for the personal computer marketshare, today things have changed. Where once someone with a Windows-based computer would never think twice of switching over, now people are switching in droves.

Why the sudden shift? There are many factors for this change. First off, the Macintosh operating system has been redesigned from the ground up and is now a more stable and effective operating system. With Mac OS X, users have a lot less to worry about: no viruses, no trojans, and no crashes. What more could a user want? For more please visit computer training

Image via Wikipedia

Apple delivers more: a seamless integration between hardware and software. When you buy a PC and install Windows, chances are that you are installing the operating system on a set of hardware that was never really fully tested together. Different combinations of plug and play hardware are what causes Windows to crash time and time again.

On the other hand, with an Apple computer, you get the operating system that was tested with the hardware ahead of time. Did you ever wonder why Apple sells the hardware with the software? It's because it allows the developers to test their software on the different hardware configurations before shipping the product. PCs come in too many varieties to be tested fully. For more please visit computer training

Plus, Apple delivers all the applications you need to get your work done, and have fun doing it. On a Windows machine, you get the basic Microsoft Office suite of applications. Now, you can get the same suite of applications for your Mac as well.

Yet, Apple offers applications that you can't get on Windows: the iLife set of applications. These programs make your life easier because they organize and import all your digital photos, they play your music, they let you import home movies, and create DVDs right from your computer.

What's more is that Apple does most of the work in the background, and leaves you to focus on the most important decisions. Developers and computer wizards used to pride themselves on knowing the internals of their windows machines. Today that's changing, as people realize they have better things to do than spend all their time at a computer terminal, when they could go out and enjoy life.

That's exactly what switching to a Mac can do for your productivity. Your computer will let you be as productive as you can, by getting out of your way. So that you can get back to living your life to the fullest! For more please visit computer training courses

Tags: fast pc repair, computer repair, computer repair london, data disk recovery"

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