Mac News and Tips | Solutions-Mac LLC | John J Budacovich

YouSendit - Send Large Files Easily

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 09:49:29 -0500

Got files? Big files? See how to make sending and receiving them a matter of ease. Check out how both our free (yes, free) option and pro-featured service eliminate the time-wasting hassles of FTP and email.

Free and paid versions are available de;ending on your needs. Find out more about YouSendit here.

"Dictate" for Speech Recognition

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:04:56 -0400

It's now the third week of April, and I finally started to use Dictate myself. I must say that the software is quite extraordinary as the dictation process is both easy to learn and addictive. I find myself dictating most of my e-mails and I'm starting to control a computer with my voice as well. In fact, the small blurb of text, has been completely dictated onto my website! If you decide to give Dictate a try, I think you will be impressed.

For Macintosh users, computer Speech Recognition has been the stuff of science fiction and fantasy. Now, it seems, all that is getting ready to change.

At Macworld Expo 2008, MacSpeech unveiled new Speech Recognition software for the Mac called Dictate. Dictate is based on the widely praised and used Dragon NaturallySpeaking Technology that has been available to PC users for years. Now that technology is coming to the Mac. The MacSpeech team gave demos of Dictate in an expo booth that was often full to overflowing. Dictate was honored with a Macworld Best in Show award for 2008.

Set to be released in mid-February of this year, you can find more information by clicking on this link to the MacSpeech website.

Bento - New Leopard Only Database

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 13:25:23 -0500

The release of Mac OS X Leopard will make available to Mac users a series of brand new applications that are Leopard only.

Bento from the team at Filemaker is one of the first of these Leopard only applications. An easy to use database that uses the new capabilities of Leopard and data you already have in your system - contacts and calendars - to make you more productive.

You can find out more and download a trial copy of Bento at the link below.

Bento for Mac OS X Leopard

Free Alternative to MS Office

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 07:06:54 -0400

If you are looking for an alternative to creating a variety of documents on your Mac, you might want to consider the free, open source alternative NeoOffice.

NeoOffice is a full-featured set of office applications (including word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, and drawing programs) for Mac OS X. Based on the OpenOffice.org office suite, NeoOffice has integrated dozens of native Mac features and can import, edit, and exchange files with other popular office programs such as Microsoft Office.

You can find an excellent description of NeoOffice and the NeoOffice project on their wiki.

The NeoOffice home page with links to the download and updates can be found at the link below.

NeoOffice for Macintosh

Play Windows Media on Your Mac

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 06:59:57 -0400

Quicktime, developed by Apple, is the native media player for the Macintosh. It will play both video and audio and is everywhere in the Mac world.

Other types of media - especially video content in the Windows Media Player format - can sometimes be troublesome unless you know this small trick.

If you are having problems playing video from certain websites, CNN for example, the quick fix is Flip4Mac WMV. This System Preference takes video and audio in the Windows Media Player format and plays is seamlessly on your Mac. It is an essential download for all Mac users and, once installed, plays without any intervention from you at all.

You can find out more information at the link below as well as the Flip4Mac free download itself.

Flip4Mac

WiFi Hotspot Locator

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 17:20:17 -0400

Finding a Public WiFi Hotspot can be easy if your know where to look. Here's a website that can make your search a bit easier.

Enter a Zip Code or city name to define your search area. Choose the distance from the zip you would like to search (1, 5, 10 miles for example), and the kind of Hotspot you are searching for (free, pay or both).

In a matter of seconds, you will be presented with a list of Public WiFi Hotspots near you.

Public WiFi Hotspot Locator

Blocking Spam on Your Mac

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 07:21:54 -0400

If you are like me, at least one of your e-mail addresses has been captured by a spammer. What started out as a trickle of offensive or useless e-mails has become a flood and you are looking for a way to stop it!

The first step is to check the spam filter settings provided by your e-mail service. Stopping spam at the mail server is your first line of defense. Much of the spam sent my way is caught before it even gets to my MacBook Pro.

The second step is to install a good spam filtering tool on your Mac. For the past 12 months I have been using SpamSieve from C-Command Software and I recommend it highly. In that time SpamSieve has been right in stopping spam 99.6% of the time - clearly a great score.

SpamSieve works with Apple's Mail client as well as Entourage, Thunderbird, Eudora and other mail clients. If you need help setting it up, I am always available for a visit.

You can find more information about SpamSieve here.

SpamSieve - Spam Filtering for your Mail Client