Barkings! | The Small Dog Apple Blog

Pages is one of those apps that really filled a void in my world. Word was slow and cumbersome (and pre-version 2008 for Mac, not very pretty) and AppleWorks never transitioned into the vibrant OS X Cocoa world.

While I know the application pretty darn well by this point, I’m always excited when I learn something new. Case in point: the automatically-populating Table of Contents feature.

If you’re writing a paper that needs a Table of Contents, there’s no reason to do it manually. When done correctly, the TOC will display your Heading styles and apply a page number to them, and then update on the fly while you’re making changes. If you haven’t used it before, you should—but there are some initially perplexing things about the formatting, so here are some tips:

• Heading styles are found in the Styles Drawer, the window that appears to the right or left of the document you’re working on. (Note: if you don’t see it, click the View icon at the top of your document and select Show Styles Drawer.)
  
  
• Each page of your document should be its own Section; select Section Break in the Insert menu to break out each page.
  
  
• Once you have broken out your pages into Sections, your TOC should show each Heading (Heading 1, Heading 2, etc.) with an assigned page.
  
  
• To edit what is shown in the TOC, click on the Documents section of the Inspector, and select TOC. There, you can check or uncheck any number of options to show.
  
  
• The individual Section preferences are found in the Layout section of the Inspector. This is where you can designate your pagination.
  
  
• You can control your pagination by selecting either “Continue from previous section” or “Start at: [put your page number here]” under Section in the Layout part of the Inspector.
  
  
• Important: If you want to have your document start at ‘1’ after the TOC, you need to select “Continue…” on both the cover page (if you have one) and the TOC and select “Start at: 1” on the first actual page of your document.
  
  
• The font, font size, line spacing, etc. are all editable in the TOC using the Text section of the Inspector. And even though they are linked, you can make your page numbers a different size than the rest of the text in the TOC.

Anyone else out there a Pages fangirl or fanboy? Send us your comments!

Speaking of iCal… this Sunday marks the start of the Chinese New Year—the Year of the Tiger. The Chinese New Year changes every year, so if you don’t want to miss it in the future, subscribe to it via iCal.

Download the Chinese Holiday Calendar for iCal here.

See all of Apple’s iCal Calendars here.

So, what are “Tigers” like, anyway?

“The Tiger is said to be lucky vivid, lively and engaging. Another attribute of the Tiger is his incredible bravery, evidenced in his willingness to engage in battle or his undying courage. Maybe he’s so brave because he is so lucky. But the Chinese say a Tiger having a Tiger in the house is the very best protection against the evils of fire, burglary.” Source

(Small Doggers Katie, Ed, Jaime and Grace are Tigers… fitting?)

Thinking about Valentine’s Day instead? Download our iMix from the iTunes Store!

It’s time for the Winter Olympics, and once again, those who love to watch the action but don’t have a TV will look to the internet for coverage. Thankfully, those behind major sporting events have followed the lead of online movie and TV services and have transitioned to make video content available online.

However, this genre really ups the ante of online video, because timing is vital—we need live streaming. (Because who really wants to spoil the ending of the Super-G?)

This year, NBC is streaming selected events much like they did in Beijing in 2008, with many to be made available with a short delay. (No time zone difference for us this time!) I haven’t yet found evidence that they will broadcast the opening ceremony live, but I’ll be checking back at 7:30 pm ET tonight.

Watch NBC’s coverage here:
http://www.nbcolympics.com/

View the official Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics website here:
http://www.vancouver2010.com/

Any events you’re especially excited for? Comment below!

I was on vacation a couple of weeks ago, enjoying some fresh powder (6 feet!) and admiring the iPad from afar (no, Steve didn’t check with me prior to scheduling Apple’s Special Event to see if I had a conflict. He’s been warned.).

While on vacation, I wanted to make sure that I was still (somewhat) connected to my crew here at work via my Small Dog email. However, much like the last time I went on vacation, around the second day in a remote location, Mail stopped communicating with the Small Dog email server (or vice versa). It’s probably all a coincidence, but I still wanted to figure out what I could do to make sure Mail and my email stay BFFs.

I have heard grumblings from many people about how Mail and especially Mail for iPhone have issues handling inboxes with a large number of emails. There are several theories about why this is the case, but a good rule of thumb is to limit your inbox to under 1-2K messages. (My last count? Almost 16,000!) This is especially important if yours uses an IMAP protocol, as ours does.

With an IMAP account, it allows users to access their email through multiple means, because whatever actions you take (sending, saving drafts, etc.) always stay synced to the server. (For example, if you have your email account set up on your Mac as well as your iPhone, the same information will be available on both.) So, it stands to reason that once the emails start to stack up, that’s a lot for the server to keep straight, and for it to do so quickly.

So, with the help of our IT Department (who, let’s face it, knows more about email protocols than anyone should), here’s a handy checklist to keep in mind when managing your inbox, whether you’ve had issues with it or you just want to do some preventative maintenance:

1. Keep your inbox under 1 – 2k total messages (apparently, it’s so important, it’s worth mentioning again).
2. Store your messages in a folder outside of the inbox, whether it’s solely on your Mac (“On My Mac”) or a folder that is available on the email server (Mine’s called “SDE” with a subfolder called “Archived Mail”).
3. When moving your messages to your preferred folder, try not to move too many at a time (I like to grab a month at a time, which works out to between 1,000 – 1,500k; ideally you’ll only move a couple hundred at a time, depending on your connection).
4. As you move the groups, don’t move a new group of email until your last one has finished (Open Window > Activity to preview your progress).

Hopefully, you’ll notice that Mail continues to work speedily and consistently. Mine’s been great so far—I’ll continue to mind these tips and to use Smart Mailboxes to keep myself organized and trouble-free.

From Apple:

The new MobileMe Gallery app is a great way to view the photos and movies in your MobileMe gallery right on your iPhone or iPod touch. You can browse your photos with simple tap, flick, and pinch gestures, and even view your friends’ albums, no matter where you are. And the MobileMe Gallery app automatically stores photos after you view them so you can quickly access them again, even without a network connection.

The MobileMe Gallery app for iPhone and iPod touch is available free through the App Store here.