Screen sharing in Leopard is pretty neat. Screen sharing is nothing new, we’ve been doing it for years, one way or another. Leopard makes Screen sharing easy, but did you know there’s more to Leopards Screen sharing than available by default?
This clip on youtube demonstrates how you can use Screen Sharing as a stand-alone application and enable some hidden features to get the most out of the app.
Just a quick reminder that MacWorld 2008 takes place later this morning. For those of you looking for minute-by-minute coverage of the keynote, there are several choices. MacDailyNews has been a favorite in the past, and this year they are apparently using “Coverit Live,” which will apparently provide up-to-the-minute entries without the need of refreshing.
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Not much of a trick, but I just wanted to call attention to all the functionality that the new Preview packs. It’s all there, in the help menu, in “What’s New in Preview”. Now with Preview there’s a great deal more PDF manipulation.
Let’s say you have a PDF document. With the sidebar open, you can now rearrange, delete pages, you can even drag pictures or other PDF documents from the desktop into the sidebar, move them around, and Preview will make them part of the original document. It’s great when creating or editing things on the fly. This definitely adds to the post about Preview’s Instant Alpha capabilities to clean up pictures.
If you ever just saved a file, and you want Time Machine to back it up right away, there is a way. On the dock, right click the Time Machine icon and click “Back Up Now”.
This is really cool, I found it on a youtube video. You can place text on your images right in Leopard using Textedit and Preview. Here’s how:
Open Textedit, type a suitable label or string of text. Set the font as you desire (cmd+t), go to “File -> Print” and choose “Open PDF in Preview”.
Now using the “Select Tool” select the text (draw a box around it) and press (cmd+k) to crop. Save the cropped PDF as a PNG image (File -> Save As)
Now with the saved PNG image, hold the mouse button on the select tool until the drop down menu appears, and choose “Instant Alpha”. The image will now let you select the background portions to remove. Click on each white area until they are all grey and then press “Enter”. Now, “File -> Save As” a PNG again, this time you will notice the “Alpha” tickbox is checked. Overwrite the existing PNG file.
Now, with the saved image, press “cmd+a” to select all, then “cmd+c” to copy the item. Go across to your target image and press “cmd+v” to paste the text in. You can drag the text anywhere you like on the image!
Enjoy! * I took this picture whilst on holiday in Margaret River, Western Australia
Well, this really isnt a tip, but im just suggesting great software makers. BlockSoft has created 3 really cool apps that i like and that should also work for tiger. Docker lets me edit stacks and the dock, but i haven’t tried this app on tiger. iConiCal lets you edit the iCal icon in the dock to change the colors of it and in tiger you can also make it show the current date. And on Pontoon, you get to face your computer in blackjack!! they also have other cool apps, so check em out!
There is an Oxford English Dictionary in Mac OS. To use the dictionary we had to go to dashboard or launch the Dictionary application from the applications. (Or there is a shortcut in previous macs control+Command+d). But now in Leopard you can simply type the word you want to know in spotlight and there it is with the meaning! Just hover over the item and you will see the meaning or just click on it and it will launch the dictionary.
Xspinner is a utility for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard that allows users to access hidden features and preferences in the system and applications and provides easy launch of system maintenance scripts.
With Xspinner it is possible to:
- change appearance and behavior of the Dock
- modify the display of the menu bar
- tweak the appearance of Finder
- enable access to hidden features in Dashboard and Safari
- customize the default Save and Print dialogs in all applications
- run system maintenance scripts and more.
