Category Archives: How Do I …?

Connecting Your Laptop to the Internet Through Your iPhone

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Internet
Several months ago, I posted a way to connect a Mac notebook computer to the internet using a Bluetooth telephone.  I have been using this method for quite some time, and it works flawlessly.

One of the reasons I was hesitating to get an iPhone was because I didn’t want to lose the ability to use my cell phone as a wireless modem from time to time.  Well, I now have one less excuse, because the folks at Dragon Forged have figured out how to do just that.

The step-by-step illustrated instructions are listed HERE, and of course, this method is completely free!  Thanks to those guys and gals for their efforts in figuring out how to do this and for sharing it with the rest of us.

Note:  I am still waiting on the 3G iPhone to be released before I get one, so I have not tested this method myself.

Source:  "Tethering the iPhone for OS X" posted at the Dragon Forged blog.  Thanks also to Finis Price of the TechnoEsq blog for pointing out this information at the Macs in Law Offices (MILO) group.

Easy Way to Mail Multiple Attachments

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Applescript
If you need to send multiple attachments to an email, you should check out Attaché, an AppleScript droplet by Martin Michel.  This add-in quickly creates an new email with all the attachments included and listed.  You can put Attaché anywhere you like, though the Desktop and Dock seem the most logical locations, and then simply select the files you want to send and drop them onto it.  Best of all, Attaché is free and can be downloaded by clicking here.

Source: "Attaché: Droplet for Quick Mail.app Attachment Lists" by Tim Gaden, published at his excellent Hawk Wings blog.

Make That Old Printer Young Again

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Kyocera_printer_2
Do you have an old printer sitting around that you would like to use?  Back when I was using PCs, I had a Kyocera FS-1200 printer that was great.  It produced high-quality pages at a very fast speed — pretty much all you could ask for from a printer.  The problem is that there is not a driver to use this printer with Mac OS X Tiger.

Yesterday, I decided that perhaps it was time to use this printer as something other than a place to stack legal magazines to be read "one day."  I spent less than five minutes searching online, when I found this article in the MacWorld forums.  It discusses a generic printer driver that can be used to operate over 500 older printers from various manufacturers, including Brother, Epson, HP, Samsung, and my FS-1200.

I spent approximately five more minutes downloading and installing this driver, and now my old PC printer works like a charm with my MacBook.  If you need a driver for an older printer, check out this article and chances are it will solve your problem.  In less than ten total minutes, my old printer was revived and is now printing as good as new.

Source:  "Found an OS X Printer Driver for Old Printers" posted in the MacWorld forums.

How to Use the PC Version of the Fujitsu ScanSnap With Your Mac

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Scansnap
I previously posted about my fondness for the Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner.  What I didn’t mention was that my particular ScanSnap (model 5110EOX2) is actually a holdover from my old PC-using days.  I had this scanner for roughly a year before I moved my office to Macs two years ago.

Some time after that, Fujitsu released a Mac-specific (white) version of the ScanSnap.  However, many people want to use the PC (black) model with their Macs — either because they already owned one before the Mac version was released or or because the PC version is slightly less expensive than it’s white cousin.

Both models work basically the same.  They both come with the full version of Adobe Acrobat, and they both work quickly and efficiently.  However, there is a difference that I want to address in this article.  The Mac driver for the black (PC) version is only available in Japanese.  Domo Arigato! 

All of the features work just fine, but nothing is in English, which makes it a bit tricky figuring out certain things.  Fortunately, all of the dialog boxes are in the same places as shown in the English manual, but it’s not practical to keep that on hand in case you need it.

Never fear though, there is a solution to this situation which enables you to load the Japanese drivers and then convert them to English.  The following instructions walk you through this process step-by-step:

  1. Download the English and
    Japanese versions of the ScanSnap software from Fujitsu (be sure to
    download the correct version for your Mac, Intel or PPC).

  2. Mount the Japenese disk image (V20L22.dmg) and install (just keep
    clicking the blue button on the right hand side to advance the
    installation).
  3. After installation, unmount the Japanese image to avoid confusion later on.
  4. Mount the English disk image (V20L20.dmg) but DO NOT install it.
  5. Open the English disk image (you should see a file named "ScanSnap_V20L11" or "ScanSnap_V20L11.pkg").
  6. Right-Click (control-click) on that image and select "Show Package Contents".
  7. Open the "Contents" folder and open the "Resources" folder.
  8. Locate the file called "ScanSnap_V20L11.pax.gz" and double-click on it.
  9. After it has unarchived the file, a ScanSnap folder should now appear on your desktop. Open it.
  10. In this folder, you should see the "ScanSnap Manager" which shows
    the WHITE version of the scanner.  Right-Click (control-click) on the application and
    select "Show Package Contents".
  11. Open the "Contents" folder and open the "Resources" folder.
  12. Locate the folder called "English.lproj" and copy this folder to a safe place (like your Desktop).
  13. At this point, it will help you avoid clutter and confusion by closing all of the various open windows.
  14. Go to your Applications folder, find the ScanSnap folder there, and open it.
  15. In this folder, locate the "ScanSnap Manager" which shows
    the BLACK version of the scanner, which is the Japenese version that needs to be change. Right-Click (control-click) on the application and select "Show
    Package Contents".
  16. Open the "Contents" folder and open the "Resources" folder.
  17. Copy the "English.lproj" that you just extracted to this folder.
  18. Voila! You should now have support for multiple Fujitsu ScanSnap scanners with English localization!

Source:  "ScanSnap fi-5110EOX for Macintosh" thread in the MaxOSXHints Forums.

How to Quickly Quit Multiple Programs

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Did you know that you can quit programs "on the fly"?  As you probably know, you can cycle through your open applicaitons by hitting ⌘ + Tab.  While doing that, you can close any desired applications by keeping the ⌘ key pressed and then hitting the “Q” key while cycling over the application you want to close.  The illustration below from Tim Gaden‘s Hawk Wings blog shows this process in action:
Quickly_quit_2

How to Use iChat at Work

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Ichat
If you’ve ever used iChat, you already know what a great messaging program it is.  If your company has blocked your messaging access to the internet, this tip from MacOSXHints might be the solution you’ve been waiting for:

Many companies block the default port used by most IM clients. However, you can change iChat’s port from 5190 to 80, which is the same port your browser uses. Open iChat, then go to Preferences » Accounts » Server Settings, and change the port number from 5190 to 80. You must be offline (iChat: Log out of AIM) before you can make this change. This will allow iChat to connect to the IM servers, and off to text messaging you go. I’m pretty sure this tip will only work for text messaging, since voice and video chat use ports that are not changable in iChat.

Source: "Use iChat Behind a Company Firewall" published at MacOSXHints.com.

Connecting to the Internet Through Your Bluetooth Cell Phone

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Internet
As you are aware, I switched from my PowerBook to my new MacBook in mid-January.  I love the new computer, but I have had one problem with it — until today.  Since it arrived, I have not been able to access the internet from anywhere as I could with the PowerBook.  Allow me to explain…

For the last couple of years, I had a Verizon Wireless PC card to connect my PowerBook (and my PC laptop before it) to the internet from anywhere.  The card I used was a Novatel PCMCIA Card, and it worked flawlessly on both PC and Mac platforms.  I always had fast, reliable service, and I was able to connect to both my office network and the internet at large when I was away from my home or office.

However, the MacBook doesn’t have a PC card slot, which rendered my existing card useless.  Verizon does offer a USB card, but their customer service department didn’t do anything to entice me to make the conversion.  In fact, they offered me the same options as someone who had never been a Verizon customer, basically igoring our mutli-year relationship.  Also, I was a little hesitant to lock myself into another long-term contract with all of the technological developments occuring almost weekly.

My regluar cellphone service is with Alltel, using a Motorola RAZR v3c.  I have read where some people had been able to connect various laptops to the internet using only their cellphones, and I decided to find out if this option would work for me.  After a quick Google search on this topic, I found an article by Michael Ash which explained how to connect a Mac to Alltel’s network using a RAZR.  After spending less than five minutes following Mr. Ash’s procedure, I was able to connect as described. 

Because I have excellent service from Alltel, I can once again access the internet from anywhere I have cellular service, which is almost everywhere.  The access speed is somewhat slower than I had with Verizon, but it’s still fast enough to be functional.  Also, $0 is much better than the $70 per month I was paying with Verizon.  The setup for this new procecure was fast and easy… and it just works — very Mac-like.

Guest Post :: Lawyer Calendaring in a Multi Computer Environment

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Guest_post
As you may recall, I published a guest post from David Sparks several months ago, in which he discussed his first few weeks as a Mac convert after being a PC user for over 20 years.  Today, Mr. Sparks discussues a problem that he encountered and solved related to his calendar:

Well its been a few months now since I chucked my PC laptop and bought my shiny Macbook Pro.  One problem that continued to pester me is one that is near and dear to the heart of all attorneys, the calendar.  My office uses a PC Network with a specialized legal application called "Timematters" which performs pretty well with one exception (*cough* regular email crashes *cough).  Timematters is a PC only application and one of the things it does well is sync with my Treo 650.  This way my secretary and staff is entering contacts, appointments, and task items which sync into my Treo.  This is very helpful to me.  The problem is when I want to look at my calendar at home on something other than the tiny Treo screen.  So therein lies the challenge — sync my Treo with my Mac without screwing up the data when I return to my office.  (It would not be fun explaining to my colleagues how I managed to wipe out the contact database)  As an aside I was never able to successfully do this on my old PC laptop either.

This is not as easy at it should seem.  The Palm desktop may be the worst program ever written in both its PC and Mac variants.  But I think the Mac version is particularly loathsome.  I try to sync with it and it takes FOREVER.  Furthermore, it doesn’t always grab all the data and worse yet it seems to corrupt data when I send it back at work.   I also tried "The Missing Sync" to no avail (although a lot people swear by it). 

The good news is I’ve found a solution using Google Calendar and GooSync.  GooSync can be found at www.goosync.com and is made by a UK based company, Toffa International.  GooSync allows you to sync your Google Calendar with just about any cell phone that has a calendar app.  If you go to their site they have a list of supported phones.  With my Treo it actually installed a small palm application that, with a press of a button, allows me to sync my treo to my google calendar.  GooSync talks to my google calendar and sync’s all changes on both the phone and those on google.  When I go back to the office it then integrates those changes straight into my windows based calendar software without a hiccup.

One nice feature of this is there are no cables.  You can sync your phone from anywhere.  I usually hit the GooSync button on my Treo as I drive home from the office and again in the morning as I head back in.  The free version of GooSync will synchronize for 30 days.  If you purchase a 1 year subscription at 20 pounds (which ended up costing me about $40, it will sync an entire year.

If you really want to go crazy, you can also buy Spanning Sync.  This program installs a system preference tool that works very similar to the .mac synchronization.  When you first set it up you can attach each of your google calendars to a separately created calendar in Apple iCal.  I’ve had it running on my MacBook Pro now for 2 weeks with no problem whatsoever.  Because it allows you to sync multiple calendars I can pull down my office calendar (uploaded with GooSync), my wife’s calendar, the Google US holiday calendar, and any other public google calendar.   I can make adjustments to both calendars and the sync process puts it all together on both systems.

I’ve been very pleased with this program.  My wife still works on a PC and it allows her and I to keep up with each other.  This also lets me see my calendar, via google calendar, even when I’m away from my mac.  It also works fine on multiple macs.  I bought my daughter an iMac and the program works fine on my user account on her computer.  If you don’t believe me then go to the website, SpanningSync.com.  They have a very nice video demonstration.

They offer a trial demonstration of 15 days.  They have an interesting license schedule, its $25 a year or a one-time fee of $65.  I bought the one year license.  I highly recommend this program if you have need of viewing and editing your calendar from other computers, or share calendar data with other users (especially cross platform).  It is a great little application that quietly does exactly what you expect it to every time.

The net result for me with these two programs is that my secretary, my wife, and I can all be looking at and changing my calendar from multiple locations and multiple platforms and at the end of the day everything syncs up flawlessly.  Since my calendar is constantly changing, this is a very good thing.

David W. Sparks
is an attorney with George & Shields LLP in Irvine, California. He
specializes in litigation and transactional practice.  He is described
as a "creative thinker focused on precision, detail-oriented litigation
preparation and strategic business planning to obtain the best possible
outcome for clients."  David can be reached via email by clicking HERE.  My thanks are extended to David for his great guest post.

Using Selective Quotes in Mail.app

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Apple_mail
If you only want to include a portion of an email in a new email (such as a reply or forwarded message), you can simply select the part of the text you want to include in your response before clicking "Reply" or "Forward".  Your new email message contains only the text you have selected and omits the other portions of the prior email. 

This tip comes in very handy in a legal setting.  There are frequently occasions where I want to forward certain information to a client or when I want to forward a portion of a client’s email to my assistant.

Source:  "Selective Quoting in Mail.app" by Mike Sivcevic, published at his Silver Mac blog.

How to Create Image Files with Preview

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Preview
We all know and love Apple’s Preview program as an image viewer extraordinaire’, but did you know that it can also be used to create image files?  Best of all, the creation process is quick and easy — in other words, very Mac-like — the way things should be.

If you have an image file on your clipboard (by using the "copy" command from virtually any program), you can simply use preview Preview and press Command-N.  A new image file is created using the graphics on the clipboard, and you can then use File –> Save to save the image in a format and location of your choosing.

Source:  "Use Preview to Create Image Files" by Rob Griffiths, published at Macworld.