More Mac 101, our tips and tricks for novice Mac users.

For some reason, I tend to come across times when my optical drive doesn't want to eject the CD or DVD that's in it. I found myself having to restart the computer and try again... in more serious instances, I have to restart and force-eject the disc by holding down the mouse button during the boot process.

At some point I thought to myself, "There's gotta be a better way to do this." Having to restart my computer when a disc doesn't want to eject is not exactly user-friendly. After pondering the possibilities for quite some time, I remembered that you could enable some menu extras (including an eject button) from the CoreServices folder.

Go to the root of your hard drive, either by choosing "Computer" from the Go menu or by clicking it in the sidebar of a Finder window (my hard drive is the icon labeled 'Server' in the screenshot), and follow this path:

System > Library > CoreServices > Menu Extras

Once in that folder, you'll see a lot of different extras that you can put into your menu bar. Just double-click the ones that look appealing to you and they will appear in your menu bar. Go ahead and give them a try. If you decide that you don't want something in the menu bar, just hold down the command key and drag it off the bar.

The eject button doesn't always fix a stuck CD, but it's one more option to try before restarting my computer.

More Mac 101, our series of tips and tricks for novice Mac users.

Now that the winter holidays are almost upon us, we're thinking about sharing stories, photos, and movies with far-flung relatives and friends. There's a slew of ways to get this done, and this post focuses on creating a simple site in iWeb '09 and publishing it not to Mobile Me, but to your own host via FTP.

If you're unfamiliar with iWeb '09, I'll say this: It does what it does well. If your goal is to share photos, movies and stories with minimal fuss and zero coding, iWeb will work. When I travel, I typically create an iWeb gallery and movie page. Yes, there are many other options, but this one works for me.

If you'd rather not publish your iWeb site to MobileMe and have access to FTP, you're in luck. The setup is simple. First, create your site. Next, click the title of your site in the iWeb '09 sidebar (this doesn't work with previous versions of iWeb) to reveal the publishing options. In the first drop-down menu, select "FTP Server." Give your site a name and enter a contact email.

Below that, enter your FTP settings. You'll need your server address, username, and password. Next, enter the path to the directory (http://mysite.com/paris, for example). Just make sure the directory already exists on your server or you'll get an error. It won't hurt to test the connection at this point by clicking the button that's available for just that purpose.

Finally, enter your site's URL and then click Publish. Off it goes! If you set it up correctly, your iWeb-powered site will be uploaded to the proper place on your site. Subsequent updates require re-publication, so just hit that Publish button again when you're done making changes

That's it! Have fun sharing your holiday experiences with iWeb '09.

More Mac 101, our series of tips and tricks for novice Mac users.

This is really two tips in one. The first is a fairly basic one that new Mac users might not know: you can drag any folder to the right-hand side your dock (to the right of the faint-white lines which separate the Trash from applications). When you first set up an account, the Applications, Documents, and Downloads folders are already there.

The second is a "news to me" tip: did you know that when you connect via screensharing to different Macs, a file is created in your home directory at ~/Library/Application Support/Screen Sharing/?

These files can be used to reconnect to those machines simply by clicking on them. This means that you can launch Screen Sharing without having to switch to Finder, locate the machine, and then click the "Screen Share..." button. If you screen share to a different Mac, the .vncloc file will automatically be added to that folder. Just drag the folder of Screen Sharing shortcuts to your dock to make it into an easily-accessible Stack.

Using the Finder does have one advantage: if a computer is not available (if it's powered off or asleep) it will automatically disappear from the "Shared" section in Finder. The files in the Screen Sharing folder will still be there, so if you are having trouble connecting, you might check Finder to make sure that it still "sees" the computer you are trying to reach.

Henrik Nyh also suggested putting VNC shortcuts in a Stack in the dock, and he adds the notion of picking some suitable icons for them. Check out his rundown here.

Welcome back to Mac 101, our series of tips for new and novice Mac users.

We've had a few questions about a forward delete functionality on Mac laptops lately, but the question isn't new. We realized that we sometimes take our readers for granted... little tips like this are actually huge news for a lot of the switchers in the audience. So if you know this, awesome! If not, here's a quick way to duplicate the forward delete functionality on a Mac laptop.

It's really simple: find the function key (it is abbreviated as fn) on the bottom left side of the keyboard. Hold down function and hit the delete key (fn+delete).

Yes, we know -- it's an extra step over a PC but your days of using the arrow keys to delete are over. There are a lot of arguments about why there isn't a dedicated key for that function and most of them focus on the aesthetics of the keyboard by keeping it minimal. If that means I hold function to forward delete, well, I'm OK with that. I think my keyboard is sexy.

Thanks, Logan!

Welcome back to Mac 101, our series of tips for new and novice Mac users.

iTunes gets easier to use with every update. One feature, however, has gotten lost in the changes. Artist Alerts lets you receive email notifications of new releases from your favorite artists, which is great. The trouble is that the link to tag an artist isn't easy to find.

There are two ways receive alert updates from a given artist. First, navigate to that artist's page (for example, here's Paramore's page). On the right hand side, you'll see "Alert Me." Click it, enter your account password and then click "OK."

The other method is from an album page. Here's the page for Paramore's album Brand New Eyes. Scroll down a bit and you'll see "Artist Alerts" under "More Paramore."

To manage your alerts, click your account name in the upper right-hand corner. Once you've entered your password, a new window appears. Scroll down a bit and click "Manage My Alerts." From there you can de-select certain artists or clear the entire list.

Have fun and spend less time checking up on your favorites manually.

• Be a makeshift DJ. I have a lot of music on in my iTunes Library. If there's something I or my friends want, I'll buy it and add it to the collection. Because of that, I get asked "Can you bring your music to the party tonight." I used to say no, because I didn't want to play DJ all night and miss out on the party. Now, I can setup a network anywhere I go and control my iTunes Library directly from my iPhone with Remote.app -- even play requests during a conversation.
• Keynote presenters unite! Creating a wireless network on your Mac frees you to worry about your presentation not the availability of wireless in the lecture room. Setup a network, connect and you're swiping through your slides.
• Sync applications anywhere, anytime. Victor just pointed this out today... if you're in an airport and need to sync some information from a desktop app to your iPhone, you don't need to pay for the airport wireless. Syncing apps like Bento, MacGourmet, Things, TextExpander or any other apps that sync over the network can update whenever you want without issues.

I'm sure there are many more uses for this idea... those just name a few. Please read on for a step-by-step, illustrated guide to create a wireless network between your Mac and your iPhone (or iPod touch).

Welcome back to Mac 101, our series of tips for new and novice Mac users.

Earlier today we saw a tweet that inspired this post. Patrick Burleson asked how he can stop iChat from automatically joining chat rooms he visited during an earlier session. It's possible, but you won't find the fix in the preferences.

First, I'll describe how to join a room automatically whenever iChat is launched. From the File menu, select Go To Chat Room.... A window appears. From there, select the correct account and add your room to the Room Name field. Next, click the "+" in the lower left-hand corner to add it as a favorite and select the "Autojoin" check box. Now, iChat will join that room each time it's launched.

To disable the autojoin, simply de-select that box. Why would a person want to automatically join a chat room, you say? Some folks collaborate with far-flung coworkers via AIM all day.

There you have it, Patrick (and TUAW readers). I hope this helps.

Home Sharing is one of the fantastic new features in iTunes 9, and one that slipped between the cracks in our coverage in the days after the software was released. Sang Tang showed us how to use FireWire to speed up transfers over your network, but this is a basic overview of how Home Sharing works and how you can use it to easily share media files to different computers in your household.

This video was made using the new screen recording option in QuickTime X, which proved to be extremely easy and useful.

When iTunes 9 changed the behavior of the green "maximize" button to shrink the player to the mini player, I adapted quickly. Option-clicking is pretty easy to do since the option key (unlike control) is on both sides of my laptops' keyboards. But I forgot that option-clicking the green button on windows in OS X does other things too.

For many applications, simply option-clicking the green button will "maximize" all the open windows of that application. Of course, maximize behaves differently in some applications. For example, option-clicking the green button in Safari makes all the open pages taller, but not wider. That's by design in Safari, and I rather like it. If you come from Windows, however, you'll be mortified that the window does not occupy the entire screen. In Firefox, it does indeed maximize to fill the screen. It's a matter of preference, but the key point: option-click will max all open windows of that application. Some are "smarter" than others.

As our last trick, try option-clicking the green button Calculator. It toggles between the expanded, scientific calculator to the programmer's calculator to regular calculator. Neat!

Courtesy molenlavapit.com

If you're the proud owner of a multi-camera/single Mac household then you've probably run into the problem of what happens when you plug in a camera not necessarily being what you intended. For instance, my wife used to have an issue where iPhoto would always launch when she plugged in her iPhone. This was because her Canon camera launched iPhoto whenever it was plugged in via USB.

Creig Sherburne has discovered that in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, however, camera/application management woes are tackled via an Apple utility that comes with the system. The latest iteration of Image Capture (version 6.0 at least) includes a preference setting for specifying which application to launch when connecting a camera. There's an even option for having no application launch, which is a nice feature if your Mac is running on scarce resources and some rogue program is taking up memory when trying to open.

Lest you think that by not upgrading to Snow Leopard you're in the lurch (though if you can, you should, it's only 30 bucks) fear not. There is a third-party solution for this issue; Cameras prefpane from Flexibits, which we noted back in July, beautifully (and freely!) solves this problem for Tiger and Leopard users.

Got any other handy, camera-related tips? Let us know in the comments!

[Via Daring Fireball]

Earlier we mentioned how to explore the iTunes LP format and how easy it is to peek inside and check out all of the non-Flash, CSS-based awesomeness. But if you happen to be somewhat less geeky, it's pretty likely that your definition of "exploring" iTunes LP is much more focused on playing music, reading liner notes, and checking out custom graphics.

If all you really want to do is check out your growing library of iTunes LPs then there's an easy way to bring them into one single collection. We have covered using Smart Playlists to manage your Library on several occasions. It's also possible to create a Smart Playlist that will list just your iTunes LPs. Just create a new Smart Playlist and set the filter field to "Kind," the operator to "contains" and in the text field type "iTunes LP."

That's all there is to it, and I'm honestly kind of surprised Apple didn't include some form of visualization a la Cover Flow to make it easier to peruse your shiny, new digital LPs. If you've got any Smart Playlists or other iTunes 9-related tips, let us know in the comments -- we'd love to hear from you!

Update: proper attribution to Jay Robinson now added to the image -- a glitch in our CMS caused the error, for which we apologize. - ed.

One of the refinements in Snow Leopard is a slightly under-the-radar trick for using Exposé from the Application Switcher. The Application Switcher is a quick way to jump between open applications, similar to the Windows Alt-Tab (at least that's what it was last time I used Windows). On a Mac, it's triggered by holding down the Command key (next to the spacebar) and then tapping the Tab key.

Subsequent taps of the Tab key will start selecting the next app in the row of applications, ordered by their most recent usage (so the last application you switched from is one Tab away). Shift-Tab moves backwards through the list. You can also navigate using the left and right arrow keys ... and, with Snow Leopard you can press the up or down key to show all of the windows of the selected application using Exposé.

Once Exposé is up, you can navigate the open windows using the arrow keys, and press Space to temporarily zoom a window for closer inspection. Pressing Return will switch to that application, with the selected window in the foreground. Escape will cancel the whole deal, dropping you back to your current working window. Also, once you've entered Exposé from the Application Switcher, it behaves just like Dock Exposé, and pressing Tab will advance to the next application in the list and Exposé its windows. See the video below for a quick demo, noting that the window zoom is triggered with Space, which isn't shown in the keyboard HUD on the video.

Thanks, Alexandre and Jonathan!

More Mac 101, our ongoing series of tips for those new to Mac OS X. One of my favorite things to do when I see someone else's Mac is to see what "Menu Extras" they use.

Menu Extras live in the menu bar at the top of your screen, over on the far right-hand side. As you add more third-party software to your Mac, you will probably notice more and more items showing up there.

If you open System Preferences and type "menu bar" you can find 12 different Menu Extras you can "show" in the menu bar, but one of the most popular and useful is the AirPort Menu Extra. In Snow Leopard, the-already-quite-handy AirPort status icon became a lot more powerful and informative. Apple has posted a page explaining the various meanings behind AirPort status icons.

Generally speaking you ought to see only a few of these: an empty icon (AirPort is turned off), grey curved lines (AirPort is on but not connected), or 1-4 black lines indicating signal strength of the Wi-Fi connection. New in Snow Leopard is the "animated" AirPort icon which appears when AirPort is searching for wireless access points or waiting to be assigned an IP address. (If you are seeing a different icon, check out the page from Apple.)

Since we're looking at the menu bar, here's another tip: option-click everything. Several menu extras, especially ones from Apple, have additional features/information which you can access if you hold down the alt/option key while clicking on the icon. Here's what happens when you click vs option-click several menu extras from Apple (several of these are new and/or improved in Snow Leopard):

Volume: a regular click will reveal a slider to adjust the volume but an option-click will show a list of input and output devices to choose from (similar in function to Rogue Amoeba's SoundSource, which was recently updated for 10.6 compatibility).

MobileMe: a regular click shows time of last sync, option to sync now, and option to open the System Preferences panel for MobileMe. However option-click shows a wonderfully detailed list of every item MobileMe knows about, as well as when it last synchronized succesfully. It also offers Sync Diagnostics, Reset Sync Services (something I still have to use far too often, but less frequently than in the past) and a few other options.

Bluetooth: a regular click reveals basic settings and "paired" devices. An option-click adds a "Bluetooth Explorer" and "PacketLogger" (two "pro" options that you may never need, but are helpful for troubleshooting) as well as showing the version number.

AirPort: a regular click will show available networks and a few basic options, but an option-click shows several bits of information about your current Wi-Fi connection; however, most people will probably just be interested in the Channel and Security.

The basic point is this: feel free to option-click around. If the particular menu extra does not have any "hidden features" to show, it will still show the regular options even when you option-click. You won't hurt anything.

Final menu extra tip: if you want to remove a menu extra from the dock, you can try dragging it while holding down the command key. If that doesn't work, look in the application's preferences for an option to show or hide its menu bar item.

Once you have mastered the basics, you may want to explore some more powerful third-party menu bar items.

Welcome back to Mac 101, our series of tips for new and novice Mac users.

In the Mac operating system, the term "menu bar" refers to the the horizontal bar at the top of the screen that generally has a little picture of an apple on the left end, the time of day on the right and words like "File", "Edit", "Format" and so on in-between. Found it? Good, because understanding how this bar works is essential to getting the best out of your Mac.

In this bar, there are two constants: one is the apple, on the far left, and the other is Spotlight on the far right. Clicking the Apple logo on the left gives you access to all the vital functions of your computer, like Sleep, Restart, and Shut Down, as well as the "About This Mac" window and the option to check for software updates.

Save for the apple, the left side of this bar will change depending on which application you have selected. For you switchers, it's similar to the bar that is found at the top of each window in Windows, but cuts down on the space each window occupies by having all applications use the same menu bar. The drop down menus perform the same functions as Windows' menus, but like Windows, will be different depending on which application you currently have selected.

Welcome back to Mac 101, our series of tips for new and novice Mac users.

The Dock was introduced with Mac OS 10.0 in March of 2001. Switchers typically think of it as equivalent to the Windows Task Bar, and that's not an unfounded comparison. Both can launch applications, open directories and share information. But the Dock differs from the Task Bar in a number of ways. If you're new to the Mac, this post will get you acquainted with one of Mac OS X's prominent features.

First, let's look at the Dock's preference pane. Launch System Preferences and click (wait for it) Dock. Here, two sliders let you adjust the Dock's size and magnification level. That is to say, the degree to which docked icons "expand" as you mouse over them. They can get pretty darn large, so be sure that's what you want before dragging that slider all the way to the right.

You'll notice that you can adjust the Dock's position on the screen. The position of the Dock is the subject of great debate among Mac nerds, but I'll spare you the details by saying this: Some like it on the bottom, some like it on the left and some like it on the right. If you're running 10.5 or later, you'll notice that the Dock's appearance changes dramatically when moved from the bottom to the sides.

The so-called "Genie Effect" lets your windows appear to be rapidly "sucked" into the Dock when you click the yellow minimize button. That's strictly for looks, and you can disable it by selecting "Scale." If you're running an older Mac (like a PPC G4), selecting Scale will slightly reduce the graphics burden on your older machine. Fun tip: Hold down the Shift key while minimizing a window for some slow-mo action.