Tunneling with Bears

If you travel with a laptop, you’re probably carrying confidential and sensitive information from your clients (just consider your e-mail!). You need to get work done while away from the office, so you find the closest Starbucks or coffee shop and hook into their free wi-fi. But everyone else is using that open wireless network connection which means your confidential info may not be so confidential anymore.

That’s when you need to use a virtual private network (VPN) service. MakeUseOf just had a great piece on Tunnel Bear which I may have dismissed were it not for David Sparks talking about Tunnel Bear a couple years ago. Great service to check out if you travel a lot.

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Accessorize for the Prize

Nice list of accessories from iDownloadBlog available for the newer MacBook Pros that only sport USB-C ports.

I’ve heard lots of good things about the Satechi USB-C Pro Hub.

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Pro Tips for TextEdit

I don’t use TextEdit all that much since I live in Microsoft Word, but here are 9 “hidden” features in TextEdit – my favorite is the Advanced Search component.

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The Outlook Looks Stellar!

I’m THRILLED to see Microsoft bake in more and more requested features to Outlook 2016 for Mac! They’re listening!!

The biggies look like “Send Later” and “Delivery/Read Receipts.”

Full list here.

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(Gummy bear breakfast cereal picture courtesy of GRATISOGRAPHY by photographer Ryan McGuire)

1Fix for 1Password

If you use 1Password (and you most definitely should) and you purchased it from the developer (AgileBits) then you may have received an error message this past week. I got it on both my Mac mini and MacBook Air but fixed the problem quickly and easily by manually updating the application. The error message was a result of a “perfect storm” of several factors described on the AgileBits blog and appleinsider blog.

The process is fast and painless – just follow the directions in this post from AgileBits complete with a video.

If you purchased 1Password from the Mac App Store then you were not affected.

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A Note is a Note is a Note is a Note

 

Good tips from @AppAdvice on workflows using the Share menus in macOS and iOS for Apple’s Notes app.

I find myself using Notes more and more because 1) it’s built in, 2) it’s quick, and 3) I know that I can get access to my notes immediately from my Macs, iPhone and iPads.

Yes Evernote works the same way but it’s too bloated for quick notes.

I find myself using OneNote more than Evernote these days, but still not the best for quick notes.

Drafts is fantastic but just more than what I need for quick notes.

I used Simplenote before Notes got better in iOS 9.

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Preview for More than PDFs…

Great list of tips for using Preview on your Mac from MakeUseOf.

My faves:

#3 – Create a New Image from Clipboard

#10 – Turn Image Backgrounds Transparent

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See If You Need some USB-C

David Pogue really, REALLY loves the DART-C USB-C laptop charger. And even though I haven’t gone all USB-C yet (it’s only a matter of time), I think I love it too!

Here is his review of the DART-C.

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The HORROR…

Make it STOP!

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(Dinosaur head business person picture courtesy of GRATISOGRAPHY by photographer Ryan McGuire)

 

Microsoft and Mac Make a Lovely Pair…

Great list of Microsoft Office alternatives from MakeUseOf to answer the question I still continue to get: “What can I use to edit Microsoft Word documents without buying Microsoft Office?”

And I respond by saying the very fact they are asking about MICROSOFT WORD documents reveals they should make the professional investment in Microsoft Office … and today that means a subscription to Office 365.

But I do like the mention of Microsoft Office Online at which is FREELY available with a FREE Microsoft account allowing anyone to use Microsoft Word in the browser (similar to Google Docs). And this gets even better if you have a subscription to Office 365.

And if you want to stick it to the man and not pay Microsoft then download the FREE Microsoft Word, PowerPoint or Excel apps and subscribe to Office 365 from inside one of those apps. You won’t save any money, but Apple gets 30% of what you pay 🙂

And by the way, if you have one of them new-fangled MacBook Pros with a Touch Bar AND you’re a Microsoft “Office Insider“, you can start using it with Office apps.

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Don’t Be A Paster Hater…

Great write-up on how to use Alfred as a clipboard manager from @thesweetsetup.

I used LaunchBar for several years which is very similar to Alfred and was terrific. But like @thesweetsetup article I stopped using it when Spotlight got so much better at launching applications and finding documents.

A few months ago, however, I did need to find a good clipboard manager and found EXACTLY what I needed with Paste from www.pasteapp.me.

Paste has a beautiful, minimal, graphical interface that I can search when needed. The best part is that I can either paste exactly what’s on the clipboard (with all the formatting), or I have a shortcut (Shift + ⌘ + V) that pastes the plain-text of whatever I’ve copied (you have to install the Paste Helper utility separately).

I plan to post a video review of Paste here very soon.

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A Perfectly Practical PDF Tip

Great PDF tip from Jonny Evans, the Apple Holic at Computer World.

I use the PDF dropdown in the Print dialog ALL THE TIME but I’ve never taken the time to customize the list. So next time I’m doing some research and saving web articles as PDF files I’ll automate the folder location where I save them.

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Smarter Safari Surfin’

Always smart to skim through Safari tips since it’s an app that we use every day. After all, more and more of what we do is inside a browser instead of standalone software.

I was familiar with most of these tips although my favorite by far is the Reader View. If you’re not using this on your Mac, iPhone & iPad, then I don’t know how you can tolerate web pages today that throw gobs of ads and videos and cyber-detritus at you.

And another great list from MakeUseOf on Safari extensions. I try to keep my extensions to a minimum so my Safari overhead is low, but I couldn’t use Safari without extensions from 1Password or OneNote (which has largely replaced the use of the Evernote extension).

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(Bunny picture courtesy of GRATISOGRAPHY by photographer Ryan McGuire)

I can’t use Safari without Tabs, and now I can’t use Finder without Tabs. I’m constantly accessing multiple folders in Finder and if I had to open a New Window every time I’d go crazy.

I like to use one SINGLE Finder Window, and then I open multiple locations/folders in Tabs.

I used TotalFinder from BinaryAge for years as a Finder add-on that gave me Tabs and other wonderful options. Unfortunately, with the introduction of the super-security-feature System Integrity Protection in El Capitan, the developers have thrown in the towel.

It’s a shame because TotalFinder was amazing (why doesn’t Apple let me sort the Finder with folders on TOP???). There are great alternatives to TotalFinder but I value simplicity and prefer to stick with native OS X features whenever I can.

Starting with Mavericks, Apple finally built Tabs into Finder although I didn’t start using them until TotalFinder was unstable in El Capitan.

It’s not perfect, and I can’t sort folders on TOP(!!!!), but the native Tabs in Finder work well for my needs.

I first go to Finder > Preferences and click “Open folders in tabs instead of windows” so that any folder I double-click opens as a new Tab.

But I usually stick with the ⌘ + T shortcut to launch a new Tab, just like in Safari (there’s also the “+” on far right to click open a new Tab). In the Finder > Preferences pane, I also set the default path that opens when I create a new Tab – I selected Dropbox under “New finder windows show:” dropdown.

You can click and drag a tab to re-position. I cycle through Tabs using Shift + ⌘ + [ to go left or Shift + ⌘ + ] to go right (just like in Safari).

To close a Finder Tab, I use the ⌘ + W shortcut (again, same as in Safari).

It’s the little things that can make a big difference. When a dialog box pops up asking me to click a button (such as Cancel, Ok, Save, etc.) I hate having to take my hands OFF the keyboard, move over to the mouse or trackpad, move the cursor to the right place, and then finally click the button.

I know, it’s a small thing, but even just taking that 1 or 2 seconds to perform that action gets annoying if you have to do it 40 or 50 times a day.

In the Windows world, you can use the Tab key to circulate through the different buttons, and when the right one is highlighted, you can hit the Enter key to “select” or “click” the button.

It really annoyed me that this wasn’t a default in Mac OS X, but I was happy to find a fix hidden in the Keyboard Shortcut Pref Pane.

Go to Systems Preferences > Keyboard > and select the Keyboard Shortcuts tab. Down at the bottom under “Full Keyboard Access” you select “All controls.”

Once you make that change, you can now use the Tab key to switch the “focus” to another button in the dialog box. The main difference from the Windows world is that you don’t use the Enter/Return key to “click” the button – that will “click” whatever default selection has been programmed into the dialog box, which is usually in the blue color.

Instead, the button with the “focus” will be ENCIRCLED in a blue color, and you’ll need to hit the SPACEBAR to actually “click” that button.

So in the example above, the “Save” button is the default selection, and hitting Enter/Return will automatically “click” that button, even without the use of the Tab key.

The “Don’t Save” button is encircled in blue, and I could use the Tab key to place the “focus” on “Cancel.”

If I hit the spacebar now, I will click the “Don’t Save” button. Or I could hit Tab to shift the focus to “Cance” and then hit the spacebar to click “Cancel.”

I haven’t found this to cause any problems or conflicts with anything else in Mac OS X, and I think it’s a great setting to change to shave off those extra seconds during the day. You will use this more than you think!!