OSX’s Hidden Dictionary and Thesaurus

Here’s another useful little tip I stumbled across. It seems OSX actually has a separate dictionary and thesaurus, other than the main Dictionary.app which can be accessed within most applications by pressing Command+Control+D while hovering your mouse over any word. This will present you with a small pop-up window quickly giving you the definition of the word without leaving the application. Also, if you keep Command+Control pressed, the pop-up window will follow the cursor, showing a definition of any word the cursor passes over.

GIF, PNG-8 or PNG-24: Really what’s the difference?

The PNG format (pronounced “ping”) is similar to the GIF format in that it supports transparency and works best with solid-color images, but it is superior to the GIF format as it has the ability to support true levels of transparency for colored areas. PNGs can also produce a better quality image at a smaller file size than can GIFs.

Photoshop allows you to save an image as a PNG-8 file or a PNG-24 file but what is the difference between a PNG-8 and a PNG-24?

• PNG-8 is shorthand for “8-bit PNG,” but more generally it refers to palette-based PNG images with 1-, 2-, 4- or 8-bit pixels. That is, each pixel value in the image itself is 8 (or fewer) bits deep, and it acts as an index to a particular 24-bit RGB color value in the palette.
• PNG-24, on the other hand, is shorthand for “24-bit PNG” and refers to RGB (red/green/blue) images. Each pixel in such images is 24 bits (3 bytes) deep and directly specifies a colour instead of acting as an index into a lookup table of colours (i.e., a palette). These images thus can contain up to 16.8 million colors, although typical ones tend to use no more than 50,000 or so.

I hope you find this information helpful and answers any of those nagging queries you have next time your saving that file for use on the web.

Using Spotlight as a calculator

Having used Apple MAcs for years now I still never fail to get a little ‘buzz’ from learning a new shortcut or discovering a hidden function tucked away within the operarating system. One such hidden feature is the ability to use the Mac OS X Spotlight as a calculator. This is a very quick shortcut that can save you a lot of time. Follow these steps to try it:

Step One
Press Command+Space on your keyboard or click on the Magnifying Glass icon in the top right corner of your screen to open a spotlight search field (see picture below). Please note this keyboard shortcut will only work if it has been activated within the Spotlight preference pane with System Preferences.

Step Two
Instead of typing in a search term, type in an equation you would like to calculate.

Step Three
The spotlight popup window will expand lower to show you the answer to your equation.

Step Five
Click the line with the answer and the full calculator application will open.

Step Six
You can hide Spotlight by pressing Command+Space again or clicking away from the search field.

Apple shareholders singalong

There was a taste of the loyalty that Apple fans are known for at the annual shareholders’ meeting on Wednesday when one shareholder thanked Apple for its great products, wished Steve Jobs well, and then asked the audience to “stand and sing happy birthday to Steve,” who turned 54 on Tuesday. And, although not everyone stood, the crowd did sing to Jobs, and Apple’s chief operating officer Tim Cook promised he’d pass along the message.

Safari 4 Beta now available for download

Safari 4 Beta now available for download. Incorporating Cover Flow, Developer Tools and more. Full review to come.

File Sharing Now Available for MobileMe Users

Apple has announced on their MobileMe news page that they have enabled file sharing via iDisk.

We’re pleased to announce that you can now use your MobileMe iDisk to share files with others simply and easily. Instead of attaching a large document to an email and hoping it’s not too big to be received, you can place the file in your iDisk and use the new Share File command in the iDisk web app. It lets you send your friends, family, or colleagues a link they can click to download the file directly. You can password protect the link if you choose to and even set how long it will be available.

Apple has also provided a video tutorial demonstrating the process, which involves simply selecting a file, clicking a “Share File” button, and customizing options and the message to accompany the link to be sent to the recipient.

iDisk file sharing was targeted to be included in the July 2008 launch of MobileMe, but was removed at the last minute, although Apple’s iDisk page continued to promise that the feature was in the works.

Valentine’s Day Promotion

It’s hard to believe that we’re already well into February when it only seems like yesterday we were bringing in the new year and tearing down the Christmas tree. But with all the talk of ‘credit crunch’ and recession 2009 is looking like it’s going to be a tough year for businesses and cost savings are the order of the day.

So if you need a freelance artworker, and are looking to save money, then my Valentine’s Day 14% discount offer on all bookings from the 14th to the 28th of February could be just what you’re looking for. Perfect for covering that half-term leave or getting that huge project out the door on time and on budget…

…and with no agency fees to pay there’s never been a better time to call ‘Jason the Artworker’!

SitePoint’s 5-for-1 Sale for the victims of the recent Australian bushfires

QuarkXPress Update 8.02 released

Quark has released an update to its flagship desktop publishing software, QuarkXPress. The 8.02 update is available for download to registered users through Quark’s Web site.

The latest major release of QuarkXPress includes a new user interface, improved support to deploy content across media including the Web and Flash; and improved typographical control.

A Web page on Quark’s site documents resolved (and outstanding) issues with QuarkXPress 8.02. Among the fixes in this maintenance update are several Mac-specific problems, including improved performance of picture importing from a folder that contains thousands of picture files; an “unexpectedly quit” error when launching QuarkXPress on an Intel Mac containing multiple Ethernet cards; and correct display of fonts in imported EPS files.

Apple Mac Repairs

Being a freelance artworker it’s imperative that I keep the tools of my trade in tip top working condition so it was a major inconvenience when the screen on my Mac started playing up. As you can see from the screen-shot all the gorgeous drop-shadow and transparency effects throughout OSX had become ‘corrupted’.