Recently, there have been a few reports about a virus (it’s more correctly called Malware) being installed on Macs. Although there are viruses out there that can infect Macs they are thankfully rare. This latest attempt to infiltrate Macs relies on users visiting websites that are designed to automatically download a file and install it on your computer. Once installed this program will “scan” your computer, and then report that it’s infected. It will then ask you for your credit card details and you can [...]

In the coming months Apple will be releasing Lion, their new operating system. Most of the Macstarter readers will be using Leopard and Snow Leopard as their operating systems with a few Tiger users making up the numbers. Macstarter will of course be following Lion’s release closely, so that you can get the most out of it. Before we get to that stage, I thought it wise to share some thoughts about upgrading. Windows users (and there are still a few of those running around) [...]

Did you know that not only can you lock your account with a password, but once you are logged in, you can put password security on your screensaver. Here’s what to do: Open up System Preferences, and choose “Security”. The top choice will set a Password for your screensaver or Sleep. If you combine this with a hot corner, you have a very quick and easy way of securing you Mac if you are having to leave it alone but don’t need prying eyes to [...]

We have dealt with Dropbox in the past. I’ve made it no secret that this is one of the best innovations in the past few years. I’m still amazed that Apple haven’t bought up Dropbox and incorporated it directly into all their computers. Today one of my students lost his USB thumb drive. Although most of his files were backed up, there were those “one or two” files that he desperately needed there and then, that were now lost forever. Suffice to say, a quick [...]

One very smart feature built into Macs for a number of years now, is the ability to zoom into your screen by magnifying what’s there. In order to do this, you simply hold down ctrl on your keyboard and scroll up on your mouse / trackpad. You will notice that your screen suddenly gets bigger. Moving your mouse around will scroll different parts of the screen. I use this regularly in my day job as a teacher. I can magnify the clock, or a specific [...]

After an hour or two of using my Mac, I will surprise even myself with just how many Finder windows I think I needed to open. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say I could have a dozen Finder windows open pointing to various folders. For me, this is not only distracting, but also time-consuming. So, when I find my desktop strewn with Finder Windows, the keyboard shortcut cmd + alt + w (cmd + option + w) will close all finder windows. In fact [...]

It seems that we are in a growth phase for news Apps on the iPad. We have the excellent Pulse, Flipboard, my own favourite Zite, just to name a few. The other day, reluctantly, I installed Hitpad on my iPad. To say I was pleasantly surprised would be an understatement. Whereas other newsreaders ask you for your preferences about what you want to read, Hitpad does no such thing. Instead, it shows you what is currently “hot” in the news. Divided into sections, you can [...]

Every so often, you’ll need to stop a pesky program that isn’t responding to what you are doing. Simply pressing cmd + alt + esc you will bring up the Force Quit menu. Simply select the program you need to quit, and press Force Quit.

Every so often you will have to deal with a file that won’t behave nicely with other documents. A prime example of this is when you are sent a scanned image from somebody that you then need to put into another document as a picture. A lot of scanners will scan a document and then save that image file as a TIFF file. These files are very good quality but have the disadvantage of being very large sized files. What’s worse is that many programs [...]

I’ve been a user of the iPhone since the first version came out a number of years ago – in fact my first iPhone was bought off eBay as the original iPhone wasn’t even sold in The Netherlands. Ditching the stylus in favour the finger was quite hard for some. My father has been a stylus man for years and only recently got himself an iPhone. So why would you need a stylus for your iPad? Well, if you’re artistically inclined you’ll know how frustrating [...]