Eliminate Duplicate Address Book Contacts

Posted on March 3, 2012 by Ammon

Is your Mac’s Address Book teaming with duplicate contacts? Do you have multiple cards for the same people—one with the home number, one with the work number, and one with the mobile number?

Have no fear! OS X has a built in shortcut to help you tame your Address Book contacts in no time.

Simply select two or more duplicate contacts and hold the shortcut combo key Shift, Command, and I.

If you can’t remember the shortcut, go to the Card menu and select Merge Selected Cards (or you can search for it using the Help Menu).

The only downside of this approach is that you’ll have to go through your contacts, one-by-one. However, the granular level of control you have over your contacts more than outweighs this.

All images are from my flickr, unless otherwise noted.

Retro Skills: Clean Out Your Mouse

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Ammon

Image via Wikipedia

Over the years I’ve acquired quite a few valuable technical skills. Many of them are as useful today as they were back when i learned them.

The art of de-gunking a computer mouse is not one of those skills, sadly, and has not held its value.

For my kids’ sake (in the event that they should ever find themselves trapped in the past and the only way to get back to the future is to perform an intricate series of mouse clicks and the darn thing just isn’t responding), below are detailed instructions courtesy of an old 1990s Macintosh Classic factory manual I found several months back.

It’s amazing that so much care went into describing such a mundane and now obsolete process. That’s part of what made Apple’s culture the way it is today.

What’s the most irrelevant technical skill you mastered? Sound off in the comments below.

All images are from my flickr, unless otherwise noted.

10 Awesome Accessories Featuring the Vintage Apple Logo [RAINBOWS] (mashable.com)
Weekly Photo Challenge: Wonder (slightlyinsightful.com)
Retro Mouse Merges New Technology with Old-Timey Wrist Pain (techland.time.com)

Free iPad User Guide from Apple

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Ammon

Last month Apple released iOS 5, the latest operating system upgrade for the their iPad and iPhone lines. With this release they added over 200 features in addition to the usual flurry of bug fixes and ever popular “performance enhancements”.

While they’ve done an excellent job improving the platform with the release of iOS5, what Apple hasn’t done very well is articulate how to take advantage out of all that’s new and improved.

Thankfully, Apple has released a free eBook explaining all the ins and outs of their latest and greatest. Want to know what’s in book?

“Here’s everything you need to know about iPad, in a handy eBook format. Get to know iPad and discover all the amazing things it can do, and how to do them. It’s the definitive guide for getting the most from your new iPad, straight from Apple. The iPad User Guide is an essential part of any iPad library.”

You can download the iPad User Guide for free from the iBookstore in iTunes. An iPhone User Guide is also available in iTunes.

With your iOS 5 user guide loaded on your iPad and/or iPhone you’ll be setting yourself Reminders, iMessaging friends and family, and configuring Notification Center with the best of them.