Mac Memos

A little app called Coconut Identity Card will tell you. See? My iMac came from Shanghai and it’s already a year and a half old. How time flies.

Get your copy here. It’s a free download and you can donate a little something for it if you like it.

The border and the text on the photo above were added using the Preview app that came with your Mac.

A reader asks how, so here’s my quickie answer:

Dave, first, to get around that greyed out Annotate problem, go to View in the top menu bar and down to Customize Toolbar… A sheet will pop down showing you some buttons. Drag the Annotate button into your toolbar and it will stay there. Now you can annotatee your pictures.

Open a JPEG that you want to work with in Preview. To size it for your web page, go to Tools in the top menubar and down to Adjust Size. A sheet will let you set the size.

Now a title… Click open your new Annotate button and choose Note. Your cursor is now a note making tool. Use it to drag out a text box on your photo. (Press down and drag diagonally). You’ll see some sample text that you can change to your own title. Do that, then change the size of the text by double clicking your text to highlight it. Then go to Tools and down to Show Fonts. You can adjust the size and change the font in the window that appears.

You can change the colour of the text in a similar way. Highlight the text and go to Tools, Show Colors. A colour picker will appear and you can make your choice.

Click and hold inside your text box, to move the text into position on your photo.

Now for the border. Go back to your new Annotate button and choose Rectangle from the list. Your cursor is now a rectangle drawing tool. Place it in the upper left hand corner of your photo and drag across your picture diagonally to the bottom right corner. Adjust the box until it is right on the edge of your picture all the way around. It’s probably too thin, so hit the + key to make it bigger. Colour the border with the colour picker, as you did with the text.

Time to save. Go to File…Save as… and give your JPEG a name. Set the format to JPEG and the quality to High and save it to your desktop or wherever. All done! And you don’t need to buy any more software. Once you get the hang of it, it goes much faster than my explanation!

Additional info. When you have your new Annotate button in your toolbar, be aware that it will reveal a pop-down menu of cjoices if you press and hold on the button for a second. There’s a delay in the appearance of the menu, so you could miss it.
Here’s a screen shot.

One of the most fun things that comes with your Mac is Garageband, especially Magic Garageband, if you’re as unmusical as yours truly.

Here’s my arrangement of a Blues tune. Dare I try to add my own instrument track… or sing??? Not yet, but who knows about some day?[audio:http://macmemos.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/Magic-GarageBand-Blues.mp3]

BTW… it’s fun to Simpsonize yourself, too.

This is a VERY nice little application that you can download and use for free. With it, you can use layers, control transparency add text, and create good looking images and collages. The author has a very engaging French accent, which you will discover as you learn to use LiveQuartz by watching his short screencasts at http://www.rhapsoft.com/?menu=livequartz_video.

Download it here, and if you like it (and are a PayPal user), consider making a donation. Even a note to say “thank you” would probably be appreciated. A lot of care has obviously gone into the making of this app and the supporting tutorial materials.

Merci beaucoup, Romain Piveteau et ses amis.

“Alex” is the best voice, but you can choose others. (System Preferences, Text to Speech tab)

Open a web page with some text in Safari and select to highlight a paragraph or so. Then go up to “Safari” in the top menu bar and slide down to “Speech”, then out to “Start Speaking Text”.

Text in a “TextEdit” window will work too, but it doesn’t work withFirefox.

Here is Alex, reading the text posted below:
[audio:http://macmemos.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/alexreadsme.mp3] (more…)