Apple goes above and beyond when it comes to helping the visually impaired. With brilliant accessibility tools across all of their product lines, they are looking out for most everyone. In fact one could even say the greatest accessibility tool is Siri. Having a personal assistant to help you perform tasks on your phone without the need of even looking at the screen is an advancement that will certainly help everyone, especially, the visually impaired.

It won’t be to long before you see a super-intelligent rendition of Siri implemented across OS X.  However, even amazingly smart artificial intelligence has it’s limits. When it comes down to it, Siri has no way of helping you read the words on your screen. In the mean time, while we wait for Siri to be able to think and see for us, apps like Zoom It make zooming in on your Mac quick and easy.

Get the big picture from your menu bar

There are already so many tools in OS X for helping visually impaired users that we initially scratched our collective head at Zoom It, an application that lets you magnify parts of your screen with a customizable loupe. But although it’s no substitute for OS X’s built-in visual accessibility features, it’s a handy way to access some of them quickly.

When small text comes along, you must Zoom It.

Like the device it represents, Zoom It is nothing if not easy to use. Clicking its menu bar icon displays a brief menu that lets you show and hide the loupe, which looks right at home in OS X thanks to a 3D border and a slightly shaded view under its virtual glass. You can also change its size and zoom level, and switch from a round to a rectangular loupe. That’s useful when moving from images to text, but you can’t resize the loupe with a pinch the way you can Preview’s Magnifier tool. Each feature can be controlled with customizable keyboard commands, including shortcuts to temporarily show the loupe, and another that takes a screenshot of just the magnified area. True to its name, using Zoom It was speedy, and it didn’t affect keyboard commands, trackpad gestures, and other controls in our applications.

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One of the most important lessons I have learned from Chris here at FoleyPod is: Always bring the right tool for the job. I don’t think I can fully express how much of a difference it makes to have the right hardware and software to get the job done. Just the other day I was reflecting on this idea in relation to past jobs and personal projects that where broken from the start because I was forcing tools to do things they really weren’t supposed to do.

But this rant has a purpose.

The principle outlined above in my opinion will always be, but the rules are definitely changing. Traditionally, people would scoff at the idea of a tablet replacing their laptop, but again its all about having the right tools.

The iPad is as versatile as it is thin. With the largest app store around and a thriving community of developers, an iPad equipped with the right apps, can do some incredible things. To help further that point, this article from Mac|Life will show you how to achieve a more iPad centric work experience.

How to Ditch Your Laptop for an iPad

If hotcakes were selling like iPads, IHOP would be the hottest investment on the block. But hold the maple syrup — despite the higher price tag on most Macs, Apple’s making more money off iPads these days. Its Q3 2011 iPad earnings were $6.05 billion, up 179 percent since the previous year. Meanwhile, Mac sales raked in $5.1 billion…representing gains of only 16 percent.

What’s driving the iPad’s explosive growth? The “cool factor” is certainly part of it, but the iPad’s utility is the foundation of its success. It’s terrific as a second computing device (the first being a Mac or PC), and for many of us, it’s taking the spotlight as our primary platform for work, email, browsing, and beyond. Thanks to the cutting-edge offerings in the App Store (15 billion downloads served!), it’s even more practical than ever before to handle all your productivity needs with an iPad. We’re talking photographing checks to deposit them, piping video calls to your TV, and loads more. But how?

That’s the beating heart of this story. Whether you want your iPad to become your work machine or you simply want to be sure you’re wringing every last drop of productivity out of it, we’ll show you how to set up the apps and accessories you’ll need to put your iPad front and center.

[Continue Reading Here]

With Chris off working in Europe, the rest of the FoleyPod Team is getting its first taste of what extreme work-shifting is like. Despite Chris’ recent disappearance, Kazdyn and I are managing just fine, we remain incredibly productive and despite our go-to man being gone, we have adjusted accordingly.

In fact this trip is turning out to be a great trial run for the more permanent departure Chris has planned for May 2012.

But staying more in the present, here is a great tip from Lifehacker and one that we have certainly implemented into our own schedules now that the FoleyPod team is working across different time zones:

How to Avoid Time Zone Confusion When You Create Google Calendar Events

Whether you’ve got colleagues in a different time zone or you’re planning meetings for a trip, it’s easy to mix up your schedule when time zones are involved. Save yourself time and confusion when creating new time-zone-sensitive events in Google Calendar by including the event time zone in your event description. Here’s how it works.

Say you live in the Pacific time zone but you’re taking a trip to the Eastern time zone in a week. You’ve got to set up a meeting at 11am for when you’re there, so you open GCal and create an event for 11am. The problem? When you’re there, GCal will auto-convert that meeting to 2pm to accommodate the time zone change. So to get it right, you’d need to mentally convert your new event to 8am when you create it so that when you’re in EST, it’ll correctly convert to 11am. Bit of a headache, right? But there’s a very simple solution.

[Continue Reading Here]

In most cases I would disagree with the old adage “bigger is better,” but when it comes to screen real-estate I can’t get enough. I remember a day when I was happy with my 15 inch desktop display, tootling around in windows 95, blissfully ignorant, doing whatever it is that a 12 year-old does on an ancient machine.  However, just has my computer needs started to revolve less and less around gaming and more about getting work done efficiently, I realized one 15 inch display was not enough.

Just like that I had entered into that never-ending journey to find bigger and better displays. Mac|Life understands that people just like me, obsessed with getting bigger and better displays need guidance, so here is their guide to finding the right one:

It doesn’t seem so long ago that buying a new Mac often required buying a new display to go with it — and there were plenty to choose from. Flash forward to the present and Apple is selling more notebooks and iMacs, which has all but negated the need for a separate monitor with many users. But for the few, the proud who still need one, here’s a quick look at your options.

From the Macintosh Portrait Display introduced for desktop publishers in March, 1989 to today’s 27-inch Thunderbolt Display, Apple has kept busy producing a wide array of monitors to plug into their Mac computers over the years. But a funny thing happened 13 years ago this month — a little Bondi blue marvel called the iMac set the stage for an external display to become less important as Cupertino retreated back to the all-in-one design that made the original Macintosh so popular in 1984.

Of course, there are plenty of us who still need to get work done with an external display. Mac mini and Mac Pro users immediately spring to mind, but many MacBook Pro users also prefer to dock their laptop while at home or the office to enjoy a larger view of what they’re working on. (Never mind the power user who thinks nothing of two or even three displays for their work.)

While there is but a single choice of external display from Apple today, thankfully other manufacturers are still busy pumping out Mac-friendly monitors. Here are some tips for finding the one that fits you like a glove.

[Continue Reading Here]

Given the current state of technology, there are more security threats out there waiting for you then ever before. With more powerful devices and better security, comes more aggressive methods of hacking and exploitation. Whether it be for your iPad, iPhone, or computer, you should be taking the necessary precautions to ensure you are prepared for the worst. Considering the many saved passwords and personal information I have stored on my devices, I can imagine that I am not alone in saying I would be pretty worried if any of my electronics were stolen.  Here is a great article about iPad security with some techniques that are sure to offer you greater piece of mind.

How To Use Your iPad Securely

Author Credit: Rich Mogull, Macworld.com

The iPad is one of the safest computing devices you can use. Its combination of hardware and software security translate to a device that’s probably more secure than your PC or Mac—especially if you take the right steps to secure it. Because there are currently no known remote attacks against iPads, the biggest security risk is physically losing the device. Thus, the first step is to make sure your tablet’s data is safe in case it’s lost or stolen. For that, I’d suggest a combination of encryption and remote wiping.

Passcodes and encryption

All iPads ship with powerful hardware encryption built-in, but you need to enable it. The simplest way to do that is to set a passcode on your iPad: As soon as you do, your data will be automatically encrypted. To enable a passcode, go to Settings -> General -> Passcode Lock and then enter a four-digit code twice. If you’d like to be extra-safe, you can turn the Simple Passcode option on that same page off; you can then use longer codes. While you’re there, you should also set Require Passcode for no more than 15 minutes and turn Erase Data on. (Technically, the iPad deletes your encryption key, not the actual data, but that’s faster and just as effective.)

All modern iOS devices also come with a second layer of encryption, called Data Protection. While the basic encryption enabled by turning on passcodes protects all of the data on the device (including your apps), it can be bypassed by jailbreaking. Data protection encrypts your e-mail messages and their attachments; it can’t be broken even if the passcode is stripped by jailbreaking. Data protection is also available for programmers to use in apps, but few take advantage of it. (At this time, there aren’t any jailbreaks for the iPad 2, so the basic encryption is still safe; but that probably won’t last forever).

[Continue Reading Here]

Understanding Malware threats to your Mac

As a Mac user, one of the things you get to congratulate yourself about is choosing a computing world that is free from viruses. It’s true. In “the wild” there aren’t any Mac Viruses. But there is Mac Malware. The thing about Malware is that it can’t install itself. It takes your participation to install it. The latest is a fake anti-virus website MACDefender. The crooks placed fake ads on websites inviting you to click and get a free virus scan of your Mac.

Like most modern malware, MACDefender isn’t designed to erase your hard disk or display a message saying “Hahaha you have been cracked by ]-[@©Km£i$ste®”, or whatever viruses used to do when we were little. It’s all about making money. Having shown you a professional-looking anti-virus scan “Control Center” that lists all the terrible (imaginary) malware on your Mac, it invites you to enter your credit card details for a fix. Presumably its work is done at that point, but of course there’s no way of knowing where your credit card details might end up.

Until about a year ago I didn't pay much attention to the string of Mac malware. Then I got a new MacBook Pro and installed it from scratch. Every application was installed from install disks. Nothing was copied into the System or Library folders from any backups. The only files copied to it were my data files. I wanted to know if I had any tracking cookies in my system. I installed a program called MacScan and ran it, finding not only  dozen tracking cookies, but a Keystroke Logger — a program that records every keystroke and sends them to a server somewhere consolidating this information for some criminal organization. I was freaked out! How the hell did this get on my computer? I never run rogue applications. No one ever works on my computer but me.

MacScan removed the Keystroke Logger, and the tracking cookies. I started to run it weekly just to see if anything else showed up. No more nasties like the tracker, but there are additional tracking cookies occasionally. Tracking cookies are placed on your computer by online advertising companies. These companies track your movement on the Internet for statistical and relevancy reasons. No thanks. I didn't give you permission to track what I read, what I buy, etc. Delete! Delete! Delete!

There are two prevailing views on Mac Malware.
* One, that it's a real problem and you should protect yourself against it — "Apple Mac malware: A short history." from Sophos, an anti-virus company.
* Two, that it's an invented technology news story — "Wolf!" from John Grubber's Daring Fireball blog.

I think the truth takes both points of view into account. After these articles, I'll tell you how I've come to handle the issue.

Then two short pieces of brilliant business advice from the mind of Steve Jobs.

Apple Mac malware: A short history (1982-2010)
There's been a lot of discussion in the media recently about the threat that malware poses on the Mac OS X platform. It's clearly an emotive subject, with strongly held views on both sides.

To help some of the discussions, here's a brief overview of some of the malware we have seen infecting Apple computers. From the early 1980s, right up until the present day, here are some of the highlights in the history of Apple Mac malware.

Mac Virus Timeline

1987
The nVIR virus began to infect Macs, spread mainly by floppy disk. Source code was later made available, causing a rash of variants.

1990
The MDEF virus (aka Garfield) emerged, infecting application and system files on the Mac.

1995
Microsoft accidentally shipped the first ever Word macro virus, Concept, on CD ROM. It infected both Macs and PCs. Thousands of macro viruses followed, many affecting Microsoft Office for Mac.

1996-2010: The rest of the Mac Malware timeline is here.

Wolf!

Ed Bott, ZDNet, three days ago: “Coming Soon to a Mac Near You: Serious Malware”:

Now I am seeing evidence that the next target is OS X. That’s potentially very bad news for Mac owners who have abandoned their PCs in the belief that switching to a Mac somehow immunizes them from malware.

Security experts know, of course, that there’s nothing magical about Macs when it comes to security. They just haven’t been targeted because Windows has been such a big juicy target for so long.

But now that Macs have achieved a critical mass of success in the marketplace, they’ve attracted the attention of malware authors. According to a report from a Danish IT security company, an underground group has completed work on a fully operational kit specifically designed to build malware aimed at the Mac OS platform.

Tony Bradley, PCWorld, December 2010: “Apple No Longer Flying Under the Security Radar”:

The McAfee report explains, “McAfee Labs saw malware of increasing sophistication that targets Mac this year; we expect this trend to increase in 2011. The popularity of iPads and iPhones in business environments and the easy portability of malicious code between them could put many users and businesses at risk next year and beyond,” adding “We anticipate threats of data and identity exposure will become more pronounced.” […]

If McAfee is right, 2011 could be a bittersweet year for Apple and Apple fans.

Nick Farrell, The Inquirer, September 2009: “Hackers Target Macs”:

A bunch of Russian hackers are offering 43 cents for each Mac that their partners in crime can infect with bogus video software. The move has been cited by insecurity experts at Sophos as a sign that Mac users’ security by obscurity days are coming to an end. […]

This is because most Mac users believe that faith in Steve Jobs protects them from all malware. To them, malware is only for Windows users because OS X is perfect and totally secure. The fact that Mac OS X’s security is the stuff of jokes at security experts’ parties does not matter to the Apple faithful.

Bernhard Warner, The Sunday Times, July 2008: “Hackers Start to Target Apple Macs”:

The company [Sophos] reports today that two new Mac-ware Trojans that emerged in February and June ought to shake Mac users of their misconceptions that their computers (and, eventually, iPods and iPhones) are impenetrable. To put this in perspective, the first really pernicious piece of Mac malware emerged only in October, 2007, Mr. Cluley adds, suggesting that a worrisome trend is about to get worse.

See the rest of the medias dire warning list back to 2004 here.

My Malware Solution

Since my Keystroke Logger experience, I’ve been running MacScan weekly for months. I find a few tracking cookies each week. A few months ago I ran it on a clients iMac and discovered dozens of PC malware varients that it could identify but couldn’t remove.

I see two premiere products in this arena. MacScan and Intego VirusBarrer Plus.

MacScan removes the largest library of tracking cookies – about 10,000. It detects and removes Mac (not Windows) Spyware. Cost $30 here.

Intego VirusBarrier Plus removes the most common tracking cookies, plus Mac and Windows Spyware, plus looks for virus-type behavior. It costs $7.99 and is only available in the Mac App Store.

I use them both and have them set to run automatically every week. MacScan finds tracking cookies that VirusBarrier Plus doesn’t. VirusBarrier Plus finds the occasional Windows malware I receive via shared files. In most cases it can clean the file so that I don’t pass on the infection. So, for about $40 you’re protected from the current ways people are trying to steal your info via malware or tracking cookies. If I were to choose one over the other, I choose VirusBarrier Plus. The threat from Spyware, Microsoft Office viruses, and passing on Windows Malware is protecting against a larger and deeper threat than the larger tracking cookie library of MacScan. Tracking cookies aren’t doing any “harm”. I just don’t think a company should be able to put a tracking device on me without my permission or a court order. I don’t recognize any difference between slipping one in computer and slipping one in my pocket. I use both because there are some areas that don’t overlap.

Wyn Matthews provides in-home and in-office technology break-fix services for Ojai, Santa Barbara, and Ventura, California.  He also specializes in Mac tutorials and is an expert in all things “gadgety.”  Check him out HERE.

Understanding password security and management

Passwords are like keys to the physical buildings, cars or rooms that you use. Your house, car, vacation house, hotel room, safety deposit box, etc. In our physical world, we take it for granted that each of these keys are different.

By these obvious standards, in our digital world, we are careless. We have the same key for our PO Box and our front door. Maybe another key for our safe deposit box and car. Understanding what follows will help you get a new set of digital keys and a digital lock box to manage them without stress.

I know there’s a lot to read here. Please take the time. It’s important.

Password Security Issues

We use dozens of passwords in our digital life. Criminals use the latest technology to steal user names and passwords. They’re not really interested in your password. They’re interested in the information in the accounts behind the passwords. Selling passwords is now big business.

I hear from people every month who discover that junk email is being sent using their email address. This is possible when your email password has been compromised or your outgoing email settings don’t require any password authentication.

This article is a look at the current state of password usage by internet users and how to create and manage passwords that are very difficult to crack. I strongly suggest that you take the required actions, make the necessary changes in your habits and practices to protect yourself.

Understanding safe passwording isn’t difficult. What seems daunting is managing them. I’ll give you the best solution.

Studies of Actual Password Usage

Common passwords ARE crackable

An analysis of 32 million passwords stolen by a hacker from RockYou (who makes games for Facebook and other social networks) found that the quality of passwords chosen by users is extremely poor. From the article:

Imperva found that nearly 1 percent of the 32 million people it studied had used “123456” as a password. The second-most-popular password was “12345.” Others in the top 20 passwords included “qwerty,” “abc123” and “princess.”

Odds are most of those users had the same password for their email and Facebook accounts, meaning they are quite vulnerable unless they take action and change their password.  Read more here.

Using the SAME PASSWORD on multiple sites

“A scary 92% of people use the same password across all websites, including their email accounts, this is the finding of a short research project we did for a client recently.

92% IS a scary statistic. Here’s how we got it:

“Over the last 6 months we have been working with two clients to experiment with their security authentication methods. One of the questions we asked was do people use the same passwords across multiple sites. 92% said Yes.”   Read more here.

Lists of common Insecure Passwords

A list of insecure, banned passwords on Twitter here.

A graphic of the 500 worst passwords here.

Guidelines for creating Secure Passwords

A nice graphic showing a matrix of unsafe to safe passwords by age and societal groupings here.

Guidelines for what TO use:

• The password must be at least 8 characters long. The longer—the better.
• Have a unique password for EVERY required password
• The password must contain a mixture of upper- and lowercase characters, numbers, punctuation marks and special characters.
• It must be meaningless.
• If a password is hard to remember, it is also hard to guess.
• Change your password periodically on sites that have any financial information.

Examples of secure passwords

These are all 10 digits. The first two are easier to remember, they are built around actual words. Remember the easier it is for you to remember, the easier it is to crack. The next two are random letters and numbers. The last two include symbols and other special characters — the most secure.

• 9tripleX1%
• SLeIgH0.!6
• 86yk6Vt599
• 25ai77L65h
• 0@sBnohwF_
• LuBuqRh%?3

Creating Secure Passwords

It can be difficult to create a random password that doesn’t have elements of the “what not to use” list. One way is to type a bunch of gibberish and then select 10-12 characters of it to use. Some sites have secure password generators built-in to them. If the site doesn’t have it’s own, and you want to use a password generator, one that’s easy to use can be found here.

Managing Secure Passwords

Most people I see use some kind of notebook, pieces of paper, Word or Excel doc to manage their passwords. This is definitely NOT secure. Paper gets lost or stolen. Documents on the computer are right there for the thief if your computer is stolen.

If your passwords look like the sample secure passwords, you won’t want to be typing them in manually. After I share with you my recommended solution, if you still want to use a computer document, please protect it with a secure password.

If you make the jump to using only secure passwords, you’ll appreciate a program to manage them. The best is 1Password from AgileBits. There are Mac, Windows, iPhone and iPad versions that all sync to a common password database stored online, usually in Dropbox.

If you manage a dozen passwords or more and your list includes banking and other financial websites — once you learn to use this application — you’ll wonder how you survived without it.

1Password

1Password captures your passwords as you login to websites. To access your saved passwords you’re required to enter your master password — your 1Password. You can forget the rest of them. If you change a password or update the security of a password, the updated password is updated in 1Password.

1Password works so well because it isn’t just a security product. It changes the way you deal with website logins. You will do things more securely and more easily when 1Password is around. There are other Mac password managers. Where 1Password shines is both it’s level of built-in security and it’s attention to “process”.  1Password is easy to learn and easy to use.

1Password is $39.99, the IOS version is $14.99. For more information the 1Password website is here.

A recommended short video is here.  A 3-minute Expert Guide is here.

Final thoughts after putting this together

I have 187 passwords in 1Password. I have passwords that I need to strengthen. I did a search for two duplicates that I use. About 25% of my passwords are not very secure. While not financial sites, they do have personal information — name, address, and maybe a phone number. The good thing is that I use 1Password. Updating these will be relatively easy. One of my tasks to compete during the next week!

Wyn Matthews provides in-home and in-office technology break-fix services for Ojai, Santa Barbara, and Ventura, California.  He also specializes in Mac tutorials and is an expert in all things “gadgety.”  Check him out HERE.

It’s only a matter of time before your car gets dinged, scratched or hit. It happens to the best of us and it just plain sucks. Adding insult to auto-injury, you are than left at the mercy of auto shops in your area, who would love to charge you as much as possible.  Sure you could go to a couple different shops, get an estimate, and move along until you found the best deal. But who actually has the time to go on a wild goose chase like that?

Well, a very small, but promising startup called DentBetty seems to think they have the solution. By reaching out to auto shops in your area, DentBetty provides a platform for these shops to submit estimates and compete for your business. This idea, connecting traditional business to the web in a productive way, is the future of all transactions.  DentBetty offers a virtual marketplace for a service outside of the web and it’s the way traditional shops and stores will stay relevant in “the future” or right now, depending on how you look at it.

DentBetty has started sprouting up in major cities around the country and may be a great place for you to start your repair hunt. How does DentBetty work? This is how they explain it:

I recently had to change cellular plans. I won’t belabor you with the details, but this miserable situation forced me to immediately ditch my iPhone 4. That hurt. Plain and simple. Despite how abysmal it might sound, this move granted me the opportunity to begin shopping for a new phone, and no, I didn’t even consider getting another iPhone 4.

In Star Wars terms, I had just shifted to the dark-side, Steve Jobs got a little bit more sick, and the ice caps melted, leaving yet another polar bear homeless.

After staying up till 3AM browsing CNET, Gizmodo, Engadget, and many other blogs I trust for product reviews, I was only further convinced that the iPhone 4 chapter of my life was completely closed. The many Android products, all newly released and boasting powerful specs, made my mouth water. The idea of exploring a new operating system and having access to a more genuine and integrated Google experience was exactly what sealed the deal for me.

I am now a very happy Android user

I have had my new phone for a couple of weeks now, I decided to hold off on writing this post, just so I could be a little bit more objective. I have found that “buyers’ glow” can often skew how I look at a new gadget.

“Buyers’ glow” aside, my Motorola Atrix is sexy and sleek, barely thicker than my old iPhone 4. Despite how tempting it was for me to buy the laptop docking station, I decided it was something I wouldn’t use enough to justify the extra expense.

I have heard people complain that Android’s interface can be a bit jumpy and kind of laggy, but not this phone, its dual-core processor ensures that. Despite some fundamental grievances I have with many of Google’s policies and practices, I really depend on their products: Gmail, Documents and Reader to name a few, are all happily situated and completely baked into my phone. This above all has to be me favorite feature. Among other things, Android’s notification system is brilliant, giving me updates on my Twitter, Facebook, email, SMS, Skype, and really anything if so pleased.

Apple are you taking notes?

Another beautiful thing is the widgets I have have access to. My calender, music player, RSS feed, email, Facebook, YouTube and Shazam sit on my home screens, ready to be used instantly, no waiting for apps to launch, just immediate feedback and I love it.

Apple has a knack for getting UI right. There is no doubt about that. Immediately after opening the box and running my new device I found Motorola’s skin over Android, called Motoblur, to be lacking in the area that Apple shines in. Though Apple’s iOS lacks widgets, there is a sense of style that I miss. However, because I am using an Android I simply got a new skin that is significantly better than Motoblur called GOlauncher. That immediately solved my problem and actually made my Android a little bit more iOS like. I love that about my Android. I found a feature I wanted to change, so I did it. Even jailbreaking an iOS device doesn’t give you the kind of control I have over my Android.

I am pretty smitten over my Motorola Atrix. This product is leaps and bounds beyond the iPhone 4 in so many ways. The one area (and its a big one) that Android is really lacking in is its app selection. Apple seems to have a monopoly on all of the good apps out there. For every 1 good app that I find in the Android market it seems that there are 10 more in the iOS app store. Everyone knows that Android will catch up to the amount of apps that iOS has, but that doesn’t mean that its not just a bunch of crap that will further bury the decent apps left.

As a new Android user I can assure you that the apps I do have I am very pleased with, I don’t want to make it sound like there aren’t great apps to be found, because there are plenty of them. In fact I have apps that make my iOS friends green with envy. It just seems that Android can take a lesson from Apple and begin to curate their apps a bit more. This would truly make Android the perfect mobile platform. Until then all I can say is this: iPhone 4 you where a great companion, but now I have a phone that knows me better, you always seemed to be in Apple’s camp and not mine, and that was always a turn off. Thanks for the good times but Android is here and all he wants to do is serve me, exactly as it should be.

Keyboard shortcuts allow us to work (and play) more efficiently.   I can remember the day when I was a youngster and I was taught the magic of keyboard shortcuts.  I also remember the glory of figuring out a shortcut none of my friends or family knew about.  Today, I stumbled across this article and to my amazement, it is full of shortcuts I had no idea were there!

I’ve always been a computer freak and these sorts of things make my life easier and feed my tech hungry brain.  Check these out.

Article Source: Mac|Life

~ Kazdyn

Keyboard shortcuts are the lifeblood of many productive Mac users. Not only can keyboard shortcuts make for a nicer user experience and cut down on the time needed to do a task, they can also just be plain cool. Mac OS X has many shortcuts ready and willing to do your bidding, but also has many hidden and unknown shortcuts. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of 10 of the coolest keyboard shortcuts you never knew about.

1.Control + Option + Command + Eject

Use the keyboard combination of Control + Option + Command + Eject to instantly shut down your Mac. This is a great time saver because it bypasses the shut down counter that you get when using Apple menu > Shut Down. As an alternative, you can also press Option + Command + Eject to sleep your Mac.

2. Command + Shift + A/U/D

These keyboard shortcuts are used to navigate around the Finder. To open the Applications folder on your Mac, press Command + Shift + A in an opened Finder window; press Command + Shift + U to open the Utilities folder; and, press Command + Shift + D to open your Desktop folder in the Finder. These keyboard shortcuts can also be used when in an opened save dialog to navigate to these folders.

3. Shift + Command + I

When used inside of Safari, this keyboard shortcut (Shift + Command + I) will automatically generate a new email message inside of Mail.app and paste the link of the web page you were browsing in the body text. This shortcut is great for quickly sharing a website address with a friend via email.

4. Control + D

To the bane of many Windows to Mac switchers, the Mac’s “Delete” key doesn’t actually function as the delete key does in Windows. The “Delete” key on the Mac instead functions as a backspace. To remedy this, you can instead use Command + D in any text area on your Mac to delete from the front of the cursor.

5. Control + Option + Command + 8

Use this keyboard shortcut to invert the colors on your Mac’s screen. This high contrast display is used by individuals with visual impairments needing high-contrast screens, but can also provide a cool effect. Warning: this keyboard shortcut may be useful when doing April fool’s pranks, butMac|Life will not be responsible for any damages resulting from the prank recipient trying to beat their Mac back into shape.

Read the rest of the Article HERE.

Article Credit: Cory Bohon