Mac|Life - How-Tos

How to Best Use Touch Instruments in GarageBand for iPad

Graham Barlow — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:31:18 +0000

GarageBand offers a selection of virtual guitar, bass, keyboards and drums that you play by tapping on the iPad’s screen. To make music that sounds any good, you’ll need to know how to play the real versions of these instruments.

Of all the touch instruments on offer, it’s perhaps the virtual keyboards that are the most practical. While the guitars and bass sound great, you still have to play them in a manner that’s not very realistic – it’s very much like tapping on a guitar neck that’s lying face up in your lap. However, with the keyboards you’re playing just as you’d play the real thing. The biggest limitation here is the number of keys that can fit on the screen, but there are controls to change octave that accommodate this. The virtual drum kits are also pretty similar to a real drum kit, so if you’re a drummer then you’ll have fun with them.

One nice feature that Apple has built in is pressure sensitivity; GarageBand cleverly uses the iPad’s accelerometer to guess at how hard you’re tapping the screen, and this affects the volume of the notes played on the piano, or the sound of a drum.

How to Create Advanced Settings Shortcuts on your iOS Device

Christopher Brennan — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:56:36 +0000

Create icons on your Home screen that give quick access to deep iOS settings

The Settings app is probably one that you use all the time without even thinking about it. A lot of the tools that help you to make iOS more in tune with your personal preferences are managed through Settings. But even with the best-designed interface in the world, the complexity of iOS means that some things get a bit buried.

If you travel a lot, turning on the Airplane mode might not seem like a hardship, but if you want to get to your usage information quickly, it’s a slightly more circuitous route. Thankfully, there is a quick and simple method that allows you to access such deeper system settings much more easily.

This straightforward method requires you to do nothing more than browsing to a website in Safari, clicking on a link there and installing a profile. Once you’ve got this up and running, accessing the system preference you need is as easy as launching an app. Tap on an icon to take you directly to, let’s say, the brightness controls or Bluetooth settings.

This whole process is fairly simple and – best of all – free. It will really speed up those times when you need to navigate to a system option quickly, and the icon looks and acts just like any normal app. The only caveat is that you’ll need an active internet connection to download the links. But once you’ve created them, the shortcuts will work offline, so you won’t need a connection to use them later.

To remove the links, you delete them much like you get rid of any other app – by tapping and holding until they shake and then tapping on the x. Then you’ll also need to remove the profile from Settings > General > Profiles too.

How to Move your iMovie Projects Around

Steve Paris — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:28:29 +0000

Video takes up a lot of space – so what do you do if you run out of room?

High-definition video is everywhere. Every modern camcorder records at that resolution and even phones possess amazing lenses, such as the iPhone 4S. This means you’re never really without a camera – so you can end up recording even more footage. But there is a downside to this amazing quality: storage. Even the highly compressed videos taken with an iPhone take up more space than you’d think: 30 seconds from an iPhone 4 uses up a little over 40MB, whereas the same length on an iPhone 4S requires around 96MB due to its better resolution. Cameras shooting in AVCHD usually rake up 500MB for the same duration. At that rate, you don’t need to take a lot of video before you run out of room.

Thankfully, external storage is readily available, but you can’t just expand your iMovie collection onto multiple drives. Each event must be on a single drive. If you run out of room, you could create another event on a new drive and carry on from there, but this isn’t very elegant and can make it harder to find the shot you want. Thankfully, Apple’s engineers have thought of that and it’s possible to transfer both your events and your projects onto new drives from within iMovie, as we’ll show you in this tutorial.

There’s also an added advantage to storing your footage on a separate drive: with both your events and projects saved outside of your main computer, you’re actually free to edit anywhere. You could start cutting on a MacBook Air for instance, then sit at a more powerful Mac to work on the final touches. Alternatively, you could take your external drive with you and connect to your friend’s Mac to show them your progress.

You definitely have a lot more freedom when working with external media when your files aren’t locked into a single computer. If you decide to go down that path, there’s just one matter you need to be aware of: any music or photos you add to your project would usually come from either iTunes or iPhoto. Instead, you’ll have to add a copy of the relevant file to your external drive and drag them onto your project from there, in order to not be faced with missing media when you do connect to another Mac.

Media Managing in iMovie

How to Master your Trackpad, Mouse, and Keyboard in System Preferences

Craig Grannell — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:46:11 +0000

Take control of the Keyboard, Mouse and Trackpad System Preferences panes

Until an advanced version of Siri comes to the Mac and we can mumble commands at our computers, we’re stuck with traditional input devices: keyboards, mice and trackpads.

In their default states, each device has the potential to frustrate. We often find mouse-tracking absurdly slow, forcing multiple swipes to get the cursor across the screen; we regularly prod a trackpad and accidentally activate an on-screen click; and the lack of keyboard shortcuts for useful actions in certain apps drives us nuts.

Take better control of your input devices with these tips.

This tutorial therefore looks at how settings for these things (and more) can be adjusted by way of the Keyboard, Mouse and Trackpad panes in System Preferences (accessed from your Applications folder in Finder).

Our tutorial assumes you’re using standard Apple kit, such as the Magic Mouse and a Magic Trackpad or MacBook trackpad. If you’re using third-party input devices or older Apple products, the options you see might be different from those shown. Additionally, if you use an input device such as a Wacom Bamboo tablet, that will probably have its own separate configuration options, available from the Other section of System Preferences.

How to Make Your iPad the Ideal Photography Companion

Richard Cobbett — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:16:48 +0000

Use your iPad to make the most of your camera when out in the field

Everyone with a camera loves taking photos on vacation. The prospect of sorting through hundreds of them when you get home, though, isn’t quite as much fun. However, with the iPad and Apple’s Camera Connection Kit, it’s amazing how much you can do on the move. Attach the CCK, plug in your camera or its memory card and pick out the good photos. You can then fix them with a few swipes in a simple program, and have them ready to email or share online instantly.

It must be said that if you want to do large-scale edits, apply more ambitious filters or have total precision, a computer and mouse beats the iPad any day. However, even if you’d rather die than give up Photoshop, your iPad remains a valuable tool for immediately seeing how pictures have come out. It has a far better screen than your camera offers, so you can quickly polish up a few on site and still have access to your originals when you get home. For more casual editing, the software you’ll need is usually cheap to the point of free.

The only potential sticking point is compatibility. Cameras shoot in two formats -- JPEG and the camera’s own custom raw format. The iPad converts the latter for you so that every application can work on your files, but that’s reliant on the iPad itself supporting your camera. Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t offer a master list of which ones are covered, so you should do a quick Google to make sure yours is. If it’s a Nikon or Canon camera, you should be fine, though it could potentially take a while before a system update comes along for new models. You’ll still be able to import JPEG files, though.

How to Make Your Pages Documents Professional with Styles

Ben Harvell — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:26:59 +0000

Give your Pages documents some professional polish with styles

When you write a document in Pages, do you tend to use formatting like bold, italics and font size to denote specific sections? If so, you’re not making the most of this excellent word processing package.

Rather than simply increase the font size and make the text bold each time you create a heading, why not make use of styles in Pages? This handy little drawer, which slides out from the side of the interface, is the easiest way to not only apply styles to your projects, but also keep them uniform. This ensures that all of your headings and titles look the same throughout your text, thereby avoiding distracting switches in the aesthetic of your work.

BEFORE: Use Pages as a straightforward text editor and you’re missing out.

AFTER: Take control of styles and your work will scream of professionalism.

Every document in Pages has a set of defined styles, from the basics in a blank document, through to more detailed styles found within the beautiful Pages templates, available from the Template Chooser.

For the purposes of this tutorial, we’ll be assuming that you have no formatting applied to your document or that you are starting a document from scratch. In our example we’ll be using a report document that uses standard body text with headings and titles in a bold typeface. By using the Styles Drawer we’ll then apply new styles and show you how you can quickly adjust them and create new styles if need be.

Once you’ve mastered these techniques, you’ll be able to turn any boring text document into a professional piece of work. It will also be adjustable at any time to suit your needs, simply by heading back to the Styles Drawer and making changes. Using styles can help you enhance almost any text document, from a school report to a business proposal, to produce a polished final product. Let’s take a look at how to achieve this in eight simple steps.

How to Create iBooks without using iBooks Author

Cory Bohon — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:45:32 +0000

When iBooks Author was announced a few weeks ago, users hoped it would make it easier to publish your work to the iBook Store. However, once those users delved into the EULA, it became clear that to get any exposure outside of Apple's own store, one would have to use a different method of publishing. Fortunately, there are other options. Read on to find out how you can publish an e-book without licensing restrictions.

What You'll Need:

>> Pages '09 or higher
>> Sigil

Creating Content

In either Pages '09 or Sigil, you will be able to use a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editor to create your book content. Mark up the pages exactly as you want them to appear when you export the ePubs. We'll fill in the ePub metadata information when we begin the export process.

Exporting ePubs in Sigil

Before we export a book in Sigil, we need to set the Metadata for the ePub file. This include the book name, author name, and a few other basic items. To edit this information, click Edit > Meta (or press Fn + F8). You can click the "More" button to add even more basic metadata including ISBN, etc.

Once you have inserted the appropriate metadata, click File > Save As to begin the export process. Type in the name of your book, and ensure that the .ePub file type is selected in the drop-down menu.

Exporting ePubs in Pages

To export ePubs in Pages, click File > Export. From the Export dialog, select the ePub tab and fill in all of the necessary metadata. You can select the option to have the first page of your document become the cover of the ePub book. When you're done, click the Next button, select a save location, and click the Export button.

Adding a Custom Cover to Your ePub

If you decide later that you want to have custom artwork for the cover of your ePub book, you can add it in iTunes. Simply import your book into your iTunes library, then right-click on it and select "Get Info."

In the Get Info dialog, click the Artwork tab, and paste in any image that you wish; or click the Add button to navigate through your hard drive. When you click OK, iTunes will add the artwork to your ePub book.

Follow this article's author, Cory Bohon on Twitter.

How to Create Letterpress Art with LetterMpress

Rob Carney — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:36:52 +0000

You can create retro typographic collages in no time

What You'll Need:

>> LetterMpress ($9.99 in the Mac App Store)
>> 10 Minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Letterpress printing has seen something of a revival in recent times. Invented in the mid-15th century by Johannes Gutenberg, letterpress is a way of printing type using a printing press and movable blocks of type (and today, other, more decorative elements). Many modern creative professionals love the tradition and craft of letterpress printing. They also enjoy the highly stylized, texturized feel of the results you get from using single color inks (spot colors) and thick paper stock.

But letterpress printing isn’t exactly accessible. You need to have a press, specialist equipment and a certain amount of know-how to get results. If you want to experiment with the style of letterpress without the expense or getting your hands dirty, then LetterMpress, an inexpensive $9.99 on the Mac App Store, is a great app to have at your disposal. What’s more, it’s great fun to use and gives you a feel for the tradition of the printing technique, offers easy navigation and produces great results.

The app can be a little tricky to start with, especially if you have no experience of this kind of printing in the real-world. But once you start experimenting you can soon come away with some very interesting results. The first thing to do before you start creating any artwork is pay a visit to the settings – the little cog at the bottom of the interface.

From the settings, make sure you choose Child’s Play as the Type Composition option. This makes it much easier to compose your artwork. Also, change the page size to your requirements and ramp up the output resolution to 8,192 pixels (just in case you want to print it later). That’s all you need to worry about before you begin.

Once you’ve set everything up, you’re ready to go. It’s worth bearing in mind that this app is also available on the iPad – so if you want to create this kind of artwork on the move, you can. It works exactly the same across both platforms, but of course you have to buy it twice.

The LetterMpress Interface

The Week's 10 Hottest Apple News Stories, February 3rd

J Keirn-Swanson — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 01:30:00 +0000

How to Keep Your Mac from Getting Stolen

Cory Bohon — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:41:19 +0000

Before we get started, we'd do well by advising you not to leave your Mac unattended in a public place. That's an expensive -- and highly coveted -- machine! But sometimes, nature calls, or that second latte is all you need to keep chugging along with work for the afternoon. Take the neccessary precautions to make sure that your laptop stays put and, more importantly, that your private information stays unrevealed.

What You'll Need:

>> Kensington ClickSafe Laptop Lock
>> FileVault enabled
>> iCloud account

1. Secure Your Data with FileVault

Just because your computer is physically secured doesn't mean that a thief couldn't steal your data. With physical access to your machine without FileVault enabled, a thief can boot your machine in Target Disk mode and copy files in a heartbeat with just a FireWire cable.

To enable FileVault, navigate to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > FileVault. Click the "Turn on FileVault" button to begin encrypting your hard drive. After the drive is encrypted, any access through Target Disk Mode will be required to enter the encryption password.

2. Physically Bolt Down your Mac

If you tend to work a lot from a coffee shop or the library consider investing in a ClickSafe Laptop Lock lock to tie down your MacBook to a table leg. This lock plugs into the small, curved rectangular hole on the right-hand side of your MacBook and uses the same locking mechanism as a bike lock.

We also recommend an application called iAlertU that acts as an alarm. It's just as annoying and distracting as a car alarm.

You can also secure your iMac or some Apple displays with this type of lock as well.

3. Keep Tabs on your Mac with iCloud

If the worst has happen, as long as you have an iCloud account you can keep track of your Mac's current location based on its IP address. This isn't as accurate as GPS, but it'll give you a rough estimate of where your Mac is located.

To enable this, go to System Preferences > iCloud, and check the box labeled, "Find My Mac."

You can then locate your Mac by visiting iCloud.com, logging into your account, and selecting the "Find My iPhone" icon. Despite the name, this section of iCloud will display your Macs as well. When your Mac is found, you can click it on the Map to get options for Remote Locking, or Remote Wiping.

4. Lock your account with a password

To keep people from logging into your account and making changes without your approval, head to System Preferences > Users & Groups, and select your account. Click Reset password to create or change your password.

When you're done, head to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General. Ensure that the box labeled "Require password after sleep or screen saver begins" is checked and a time is selected. While you're here, check the box to "Disable automatic login." Doing this will make your Mac more secure.

5. Keep Your Stuff with You

Of course, the best way to keep from becoming a victim of theft is to just keep your stuff with you. We recommend getting a nice, comfortable bag, and keeping it on your person at all times when you're out and about. Or a ferocious dog that is constantly baring its teeth at anyone who goes near your stuff. We're kidding about that last part. Doggies are nice.

Follow this article's author, Cory Bohon on Twitter.