The Mac Experience in Business & Home: Help, Tips, Discussion & Radio Show Notes

Having “discovered” the capability accidentally just recently, I wondered when did Apple introduce this useful trick? I found out, along with solving other mysteries of iTunes, AirTunes, the Airport Express and its imitators, through visits to a local Apple Store and some good old-fashioned gumshoing, er, I mean Googling.

When Apple’s Airport Express first flew onto the market two years ago this month, you may have thought:

Thanks to Rod who e-mailed us with a question tonight from his .Mac account.

“Is there anti spyware for Mac’s availble? I have a 1.67GHz G4 17″Powerbook. The firewall in the Mac OS X 10.4.6 is turned on. Any other suggestions for mac security would be appreciated. ”

While anti-spyware isn’t yet needed for your Mac, there’s plenty you can do to secure your Mac. To start, if you’re using Apple Mail, and have a $99/year .Mac account like Rod, securing your e-mail from potential prying eyes at public wireless access points, and elsewhere, is fairly straight-forward.

Why would anyone enjoy managing their font collection? Because it’s quick and simple with Linotype’s Font Explorer X. This little gem of freeware was suggested by a good friend of mine so I thought I’d give it a whirl. Not only was it a great Font Management application, it is easily the friendliest and quickest I’ve ever used. It’s packed full of features from info and previews, to online font shopping. The interface will remind you of iTunes and is quick for any iLife user to get the hang of. Take a look at http://www.linotype.com/fontexplorerX

We had a caller looking for audio software to manage live recordings. If you’re looking for specific functions, Apple’s archives are a good place to start, that is, if GarageBand, Apple’s software free with new computers or iLife upgrades, is not enough for you:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/audio/

Note that the latest version of GarageBand as of this post on June 15, 2006, version 3.0.2, has a bevy of tools for podcasts, both live and canned, and should not be discounted until tried. I’ve used GarageBand for everything from recording our radio show live, through preparing ring tones for both my wife’s phone, and my own.

Try a new scene on your Mac’s desktop image with over 600 free wallpaper images to choose from at InterfaceLIFT . The site also features user submitted custom icons to keep your Mac in high style.

You can change your Mac’s desktop image by clicking on the Apple logo in the upper left corner of your screen (in Mac OS X) and selecting ‘System Preferences’. Choosing ‘Desktop & Screen Saver’ will allow you to change your desktop image.

Great websites start with good design and relevant content. Getting visitors to your site is an important next step in the process. Using Google Sitemaps is a great way to help achieve this goal.

The Google Sitemaps program allows direct interaction with Google regarding the content of your web pages and website structure via a data file which is uploaded to your site. Sitemaps takes care of the rest by retrieving important information contained within the file while providing some useful report and performance information such as files that cannot be found, or pages that may contain errors.