Microsoft keyboard stopped working with Mac Mini

I've been running OS X Lion since the update was available and encountered no problems with my Microsoft USB keyboard. Until today, that is. For whatever reason, my Mac refused to recognize the keyboard, even when I changed the USB slot it was connected to.

The solution? I shut down the computer and removed all USB connections (i.e., keyboard, mouse and printer) and then reconnected them all in different ports. After re-booting, the Mac was able to recognize the Microsoft keyboard and functionality was restored.

OS X Lion available this July for $29.99!

Wow. Apple continues to impress me. At first I was a bit annoyed that as a new Mac Mini user, that I wouldn't have access to Lion because purchasing a new OS just wasn't in the budget. But at $29, they are practically giving it away. From what I understand, Lion is a 4GB download from the App Store! That's not just a few patches; that is indeed, a major upgrade... a very affordable upgrade at that.

There are all sorts of new features that will come with Lion. You can check out the full list at http://www.apple.com/uk/macosx/whats-new/features.html. The new Mail and Mission Control features look like they will be especially useful to me. But seriously, everything seems to have gone through a major overhaul. I just can't wait to get it on my computer. Working on a Mac has been a complete joy--much better than Windows--and these new changes are just going to enhance the experience.

Interestingly enough, it was recently reported that the new Windows OS (Windows 8) is going to be HTML5 & Javascript based! WTF? I know a lot of developers who work with Silverlight or XNA are concerned as to whether these frameworks will be supported by the new HTML5 architecture. I'm not too sure what to say about all of this. I recently decided to give Mac development a try and quite frankly, I'm not regretting the decision at all--especially with Microsoft's new direction.

French Accents with Mac OS X

My Mac's language settings are set to English and I'm using a Microsoft (USB) English keyboard.

After a search on Google, I found the solution:

Adding accents on a Mac is very simple, just hold down the option (alt)  key plus the key for the accent you want to create, then type the letter you would like to appear under the accent.  Hold shift for capital letters.
Here is the list of the keys to hold down with option (alt) to create each accent (do not type the +): 

Grave (è) – option + ~
Aigu (é) – option + e
Cédille (ç) – option + c
Circonflexe (ê) – option + i
Tréma (ö) – option + u

 (The above was taken from James Ward's blog at: http://jamesward.wordpress.com/2009/01/30/french-accents-on-mac-os-x-leopard/)

So if you wanted to create "é", you would do the following:

1. Press the following keys together: Alt  e
2. Once again press: e

I hope that was clear enough. Once you get used to it, it's actually easier to remember than the usual keyboard modifications under Windows 7.

Re-sizing images with iPhoto

I'm embarrassed to say that it took me a while to figure this out, but I thought I would share anyway just in case anybody else was wondering how to re-size photos with iPhoto.

Essentially, it's super easy: Just click on File --> Export and then adjust the size options accordingly.

If you are looking for a free open-source image editor for your Mac, please check out Seashore.

Using Avery label templates with Pages

Pages doesn't ship with pre-defined label templates for popular brands like Avery.

It's not a big deal though: You can get templates directly from Avery for all of their products. So, if you need a template for Avery's 5163 shipping labels, just enter those search terms into Google. Avery labels generally come in .DOC format but they are easily read by Pages.

If double-clicking the template doesn't open Pages by default, you can change this by right-clicking the template file and then selecting, Get Info. From that newly-created window, go to the Open with section select Pages from the drop-down menu.

Mac Mini OS X continues to kick ass

I thought that I was going to experience difficulties with the installation of my Brother DCP-7020 printer/scanner.

Nope.

Printer works as expected and the scanner utility that comes with OS X is superior to the software that was bundled with my software (i.e., Paperport and some other Brother utility that never worked with Vista or XP).

Thanks Apple. It's so awesome that you made a product that, "just works!"

Windows Experience Index

According to the Windows Experience Index, my Mac Mini setup rates a 5.2, the whole of which is determined by the lowest score. If you click on the image to the left you will see that the scores obtained ranged from 5.2 to 6.0, which gives an average of 5.62. 


The lowest score of 5.2 is attributed to Windows Aero, which I don't use. I don't even know if it's available on my version of Windows 7. 


According to the help file:

If your computer has a 64-bit central processing unit (CPU) and 4 gigabytes (GB) or less random access memory (RAM), then the Memory (RAM) subscore for your computer will have a maximum of 5.9. 


So, 5.2 ain't too shabby considering that I only have 2 gigabytes of memory installed AND the average score is 5.62.