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Resize Images for iPhoto Slideshows
Quick Alarm Templates in iCal
Maps inside Dictionary
Infinite undo in TextEdit
Some Safari Shortcuts

Resize Images for iPhoto Slideshows

If you are running a slideshow in either Preview or iPhoto, you want the image being shown to be exactly sized to your screen. Images from almost all modern cameras are much larger in pixel dimensions than your Mac's display, so they will be interpolated down to fit. When they are resized on the fly through interpolation they never look as crisp or pristine.

When I import images from my Nikon to the Mac, I keep them outside of iPhoto and at their original size, as an archive from which I might eventually produce some prints. From there I choose the best examples that I want to display onscreen and copy those out of the archive for processing. Each one of those favorites that I've chosen is then tweaked in an image editor (I use Gimp Shop) and the final step before sharpening is to resize it down to match the dimensions of my display.

My iMac is 1440 by 900, so if an image is narrower than that ratio I scale it so the height is exactly 900; if it's wider I scale it so the width is exactly 1440. After these tweaked and resized images are finished I import only those into iPhoto. Then when I run a slideshow they are displayed exactly at their original size (not stretched or shrunk to fit the screen) and the difference is stunning.

Quick Alarm Templates in iCal

Go to Today in iCal and create a new event. Give it a name like "iCal Quick Alarm." Bring up the Info window and set the alarm for that event to "Alarm with Sound 0 Minutes Before."

Now de-select the event and then drag it to your task list (this will make a copy of the event that is now a task). Here's the trick: You now have a template for any number of alarms that will sound at the exact time on which they are dropped, rather than having to fuss with the configuration each time.

Now, if you need an alarm to sound at precisely 8:23 just drag the iCal Quick Alarm task onto Today at 8:15 or 8:30 (this turns a copy of the task into an event), click on the minutes in the info window and roll your mouse wheel to fine-tune — and you're done.

When the alarm sounds you can drag it to snooze it, or simply throw it away! Next time you need one it's right there in your task list as a template.

Maps inside Dictionary

It's not well known that the Dictionary application that ships with Tiger contains over one thousand (quite randomly chosen) illustrations. Chances are pretty poor that the word you're looking up will have one. However, if you type in the name of a country the odds are excellent that there's an associated map.

They're not super-detailed maps, but they are handy, say, when you hear of a country in the news and you need to get a fix on where it is in relation to its neighbors.

Another tip with Dictionary: When the definition of a word is displayed, click on the triangle next to the Dictionary header to jump to the Thesaurus section.

Infinite undo in TextEdit

TextEdit, the built in text editor in OS X, is a great tool for doing such tasks as tweaking your HTML code. That's because it has unlimited undo capabilities. You can open an HTML document (as an example), change some of the code and press Cmd-S to save it and refresh your browser to see the changes.

Let's say you make ten changes and save ten times and then decide that the whole exercise was a mistake; don't worry. As long as the document window remains open you can press Cmd-Z to step back through the changes and the saves, all the way back to when you first opened the document. You'll hear a beep when you're all the way back and there's nothing left to undo.

Another way to guarantee that you can go back to the original state of the document is to open it, then hold down the Option key while dragging the icon of the document right out of it's title bar and dropping the icon on your desktop—making a copy.

Some Safari Shortcuts

Forcing a Resize

The button below when clicked will resize your current Safari window to 800 pixels wide and the height of your screen. (Try it now). You can click and hold on the button's text and then drag it to the Bookmarks Bar to make a permanent button for forcing a resize. The button isn't a link as such—it's a javascript. You can modify the script to any width and height you want.

Resize

Forcing a Download

When you click a link to download a file, sometimes it might open in the browser instead (examples might be quicktime files, or PDFs). To force a download you can Ctrl-click (or right-click) and choose to save the linked file. If you have the Downloads window open, you can simply drag and drop the link there to start the download; a final method is to Option-click the link.

The Bookmarks Bar

You can show or hide the bookmarks bar—it appears directly below the toolbar. Using your mouse you can drag a URL icon from the address bar onto the bookmark bar to make a quick link. You can also drag links from viewed pages directly onto the bar.

Once a link is on the bar it can be dragged left or right to reposition it—dragging it off the bar deletes it.

If you want to organize a group of items on the bookmarks bar into a drop down menu then click on the Book icon at the left of the bar. You'll now see those same items represented in a table. Cmd-click the items you want to group, then Option-click the + button at the bottom of the screen to immediately move them into a new folder. The folder has an auto-click option. This turns it from a drop down menu in the bookmarks bar, to a single button that opens all the enclosed links at once.

Links on the bookmarks bar (not folders or auto-click buttons) can be quickly actioned by pressing the Cmd-1 to Cmd-9 keys.

To make a divider to separate bookmarks on the bar—make a new link to somewhere innocuous like about:blank and name it: | which is Shift-(the key above and to the right of the Return key).

Open in New Tab

There are various shortcuts for opening links in new windows or tabs. They are explained in the Safari Preferences panel. What isn't explained: You can use these same shortcuts from the address bar simply by pressing Return instead of clicking.

This way you could (for example) type an address into the bar, press the required combination, and press Return to open the new webpage in a separate tab or window—front and center, or in the background.

Quickly Add a Favorite

If you click on the Plus button on the toolbar then the current page is bookmarked; a dialog appears for you to edit the name and file the bookmark. If you just want to file the bookmark in the root menu with the name that appears in the page's titlebar, then hold down the Shift key when clicking on the Plus button.