Barkings! | The Small Dog Apple Blog

This tip comes from Apple’s MobileMe Blog. I’ve found the tip works well and is a fun gee-whiz feature worth passing on.

On any Mac running Snow Leopard, you can use MobileMe Gallery public albums (albums that aren’t hidden or password-protected) as a screensaver. Simply use the Desktop & Screen Saver tab in System Preferences, click the plus sign and choose* Add MobileMe Gallery.*

Then enter your member name or the member name of a friend or family member, select the albums you want to use as a screen saver and the effects you’d like to apply, and click OK. Next time your screen saver starts, it will use pictures from the album(s) you selected.

Again, you’ll need Mac OS X v10.6.2 Snow Leopard to use this tip, along with a MobileMe account.

MobileMe is a great add-on service for any Mac, as well as the ultimate iPhone accessory. You can read about MobileMe’s great iPhone features on Apple’s website by clicking here.

Save $10 on MobileMe at Smalldog.com. Plus, get an additional $30 back when purchased with a new Mac!

In the Mac Finder, you can get info on any file, folder or application by highlighting it (by clicking on it once), and then holding down the Command and I keys at the same time. I use this all the time to determine the size of a file, assign sharing and editing permissions to it, and set the preferred application to open it.

I recently discovered that you can use the Get Info command directly within Spotlight. Simply search for the file you’re looking for in Spotlight, highlight it, and hold down Command and I at the same time. This is a very speedy way to get info on any file on your Mac!

It’s easy to change the color of text in most Mac applications. But what if you want to use a custom color, or copy a color from a favorite web page or photo, and reuse this color in an email or other document? Here’s how.

First, you need to bring up the Mac OS X color chooser. This is usually found in an application’s menu bar under “Format.” For example, in TextEdit, just highlight a word, and click on Format > Font > Show Colors in the menu bar. In Mail, just highlight a word and choose Format > Show Colors.

When the Colors dialog appears, click on the color wheel in its upper left corner. Next, use the magnifying glass to hover over a color you’d like to copy. Click with your mouse to copy the color to the horizontal color bar at the top of the color chooser (next to the magnifying glass icon).

Next, click-and-hold in this horizontal color bar and start dragging slowly—a tiny square will appear under your cursor. Just drag-and-drop this square onto one of the white square boxes at the bottom of the Colors dialog.

This saves that color for future use, so when you want it, all you have to do is click once on that square (no more messing with the color wheel). Hope that makes sense!

This article is inspired by a post on Macosxhints.com, an excellent repository of user-submitted Mac tips. Most of the tips tend to be fairly technical, but it’s still worthwhile to scroll through from time to time to see what’s new.

Have you ever had a CD or DVD stuck in your Mac’s optical drive? There are several ways to force it to eject. Apple recommends logging out of your user account, and then logging back in again (choose Apple menu > Log Out). Try to eject the disc again.

If you still can’t eject the CD or DVD, choose Apple menu > Restart. While your computer restarts, hold down the mouse button or trackpad button until the disc is ejected. If you have a newer MacBook or MacBook Pro with the multi-touch trackpad that doesn’t have a button, simply press down on the trackpad while the Mac reboots.

If that fails, try rebooting while holding down the Mac’s eject key while (or F12 key if there isn’t one on your keyboard).

Also, on newer Macs, the CD will very often eject itself if given enough time. If the above methods fail to eject the disk, simply reboot your Mac and let it sit for a 10 – 15 minutes. If you have a notebook, make sure your power cable is plugged in.

If these solutions fail to eject a stuck disk, here are some techier solutions from Macosxhints.com.

Also, a word advice—never insert a mini-CD or mini-DVD into your Mac’s slot drive. That is a recipe for disaster.

I have to admit, this has been an ongoing problem for me that I have really been too lazy to figure out. Every time I went to send someone an iCal invitation by right clicking on the event and hitting “Mail Event”, the email would show up with “(null) invites you to…” and the person on the receiving end would not be able to open up that iCal invite.

I basically thought, “Well, I did send the invite; they can just add it to their own calendar!” No one really said anything… until Kali spoke up! She was telling me she couldn’t add my events and had to add them on her own, just an extra step for everyone.

I was playing around in my Address Book today and noticed that my “Personal Card” in Address Book did not show my email address. I then added my email address to my personal card and randomly sent another iCal event. It was like magic—Kali could open it and it no longer said “null” it read “Katie invites you to…”!

Moral of the story is that if you are seeing (null) in the subject line when you are sending iCal events, add your email address!

Sometimes these SIMPLE things can really throw you for a loop. I guess have to start showing up for meetings now!