Hi.
I'm Sharon Vaknin, and I'm here to talk to all of you MacBook owners.
So, you have a MacBook and it's really, really beautiful.
Sure, your Windows-using friends may scoff at the amount of money you spent on a laptop, but Macs can do some really awesome things.
Now, if I shared them all, this how-to would go on for hours.
So I'm going to give you 5 of my favorite things that I
rub in my Windows-using friends' faces.
First, check out the Spotlight.
It's the magnifying glass in the top right corner of your screen.
To open it, click it or hit command and space.
This modest feature has a lot of functions.
Mainly, you can use it to find files, open applications or find documents by searching their content.
For instance, you wrote a report on China's 302 mile per hour train.
But you can't remember what you titled it.
Just enter a couple keywords and the Spotlight will do the rest.
The
other brilliant thing about Spotlight is its built in dictionary and calculator.
Enter the word in question and the definition will pop-up.
Hit return, and the dictionary application will open- giving you access to a thesaurus and Wikipedia.
And since some of us aren't mathematically inclined, the instant calculator is a genius tool.
Type in your equation, and your MacBook will solve it for you.
You can thank me later.
But remember, I want you to postpone carpal tunnel for as long as possible.
So, go ahead and use command
and space to open Spotlight and complete your next task without ever touching the mouse.
Now, if you've used a Windows PC, you know that taking a screenshot is as easy as clicking PrintScreen, opening Microsoft Paint, paste in the screenshot from the clipboard and saving the file.
Yeah, not so easy.
This also means, you can't take consecutive screenshots without saving what's on the clipboard first.
On the Mac, life is a little easier.
Click command shift 3 to capture the entire screen.
The screenshot
will be saved as an image on your desktop.
Likewise, hit command shift 4 and drag your mouse to capture a specific area of the screen.
If you're a data hoarder, you know, you have a folder on your computer where you've saved hundreds of random photos from the web, or you like doing research and you've compiled a 15-page document with snippets about the declining bee population in California.
Listen up.
You'll like this trick.
In your browser, just highlight the text you want to save, and drag it to your desktop.
It'll be saved as a text file.
Or drag a photo and it'll be saved as an image.
So, now that you've hoarder a bunch of photos on your desktop, it's time to put them in a folder.
Drag the image over the destination folder, and hold.
The folder will open and if you keep holding the mouse, you can drag the file over another folder within that folder and so on and so forth.
It's completed spring loaded folders.
Okay, I saved the best for last.
Since applications can hog space on your drive, try uninstalling a few.
Using Spotlight, type applications to go to
that folder, and highlight the app you want to get rid off.
Then, delete it by hitting command and delete, or right-click it and select Move To Trash.
That's it.
No, really, that's all.
Well, some sticklers will argue that this method leaves some teeny-tiny files laying around.
So, if you're really concerned with your computer's cleanliness, download a free program called App Cleaner.
For a written list of these tips, head to my post on the CNET TV Blog.
You should be making the most of your Mac, so use them.
For CNET, I'm Sharon Vaknin
and I'll see you on the Interwebs.
