If you’re looking for a quick way to preview your fonts on a mac, Finder is here to help you. Assuming that you have OSX 10.5 Leopard, just open up Finder and browse to your fonts directory (they should be in the Library/Fonts directory by default). Select “Cover Flow” view and you can see the first letter of the alphabet rendered in the selected font.

The first letter of each font may not be enough for you, so as you’re browsing through them, press the space bar. Continue Reading »

Read more: Design, Productivity, Mac | Comments (0)

Whether you’re a user interface designer, a programmer, or even a customer just trying to convey what you want done, Basalmiq’s Mockup is the best tool I’ve found for mocking up what a screen or web page needs to look like. Every once in a while I need to come up with a user interface design that I know will change the moment a few of us get into a room and start to talk to each other. I’ve done this on whiteboards, in Photoshop, on paper and even using real code. I’ve even tried software like Visio, and a freeware program called Denim to do these mockups. Each of these has its downsides, but most of all I end up thinking more about the tool than the design I’m trying to work on. Continue Reading »

Read more: Software, Windows, Design, Productivity, Linux, Programming, Mac | Comments (1)

In a previous article (Show Hidden Files in Mac OS X Finder) Craig described how to change your Finder settings to always view all the hidden files on your system. If you would rather not leave them visible, then here’s a simple way to get to hidden directories when you need to.

Continue Reading »

Read more: Productivity, Mac | Comments (4)

In Mac Mail, when replying to an e-mail, the default action is for it to quote the entire e-mail that you are replying to.  If you want to quote only part of the e-mail in your reply, then the fastest way is to highlight that portion of the e-mail in the original e-mail, BEFORE hitting the reply key.

Read more: Mac | Comments (1)

For any of you power-users moving from Windows to MacOS X behind me, another thing you’ll want to know is how to get the Finder to show hidden files (those that begin with a period).  Continue Reading »

Read more: Mac | Comments (4)

My sister-in-law wants advice on buying a new laptop. For what they’re worth, here are my pearls of wisdom for saving money and headaches, and for getting the most bang for the buck.
Continue Reading »

Read more: Productivity | Comments (3)