Tend app for Mac Archives

1. What is an Apple ID?
2. If Goucher IT manages my Mac, why do I need an Apple ID?
3. What if I have more questions about my Apple ID?
4. What if I forget my Apple ID or Password?

What is an Apple ID?

An Apple ID is your account for everything that comes directly from Apple. This could include:

• iTunes Music, Movies, and TV Shows
• Podcasts
• iBooks
• iPhone and iPad Apps
• Mac App Store Apps

Think of an Apple ID as an ownership list. Whenever you purchase, or download a free App, song, movie, etc, it is added to a list of content that you own in your Apple ID. This content can then be used on any compatible Apple device, without having to buy it again! (Note: While they’re both called Apps, Mac App Store Apps, and iPhone and iPad Apps are not the same thing, and can’t be shared across devices.)

Apple IDs, like most other website accounts, tend to be your email address used when you created it. Because the signup process also stores your address and other information to prove your identity, they’re also useful if shopping on the Apple Online Store, or to make reservations at the Apple Retail Store.

If Goucher IT manages my Mac, why do I need an Apple ID?

In addition to allowing you access to the iTunes store, and downloading apps onto an iPhone or iPad, an Apple ID allows you to expand the list of Apps that your Mac came with in the Mac App Store. In fact, Apple gives you a few just for being a new Mac owner!

By opening up the Mac App Store (click on the blue icon with an ‘A’ on it on your dock), and then clicking “Purchases” at the top of the screen, your Mac will tell you that you have some apps to accept.

Once you sign in on this page, a number of great apps will be automatically added to your account, and begin downloading. Because the apps are now on your account, you’ll be able to update them yourself when necessary!

The apps you’ll get include:

• Pages: an Apple version of Word
• Numbers: an Apple version of Excel
• Keynote: an Apple version of Powerpoint
• iPhoto: a fantastic photo organizing, editing, and sharing application
• iMovie: an easy-to-use video editing and sharing application
• Garageband: an introduction to digital audio recording and music making

What if I have more questions about my Apple ID?

Apple’s Knowledge Base has a great set of Frequently Asked Questions about Apple IDs. You can find it at: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5622

What if I forget my Apple ID or Password?

Visit Apple’s reset page at http://iforgot.apple.com, and you’ll be walked through the process of resetting your Apple ID.

As soon as you reset your Apple ID, every Apple device you own that uses it will ask you to re-enter your new password. Just put your new password in and hit “OK,” and it will save the password for future use!

Essential Mac Apps For College Students

Laptops became an integrate part of schooling as much as copybooks and pens before them. They are the most versatile tools, but they have their issues. Too often students finding themselves in possession of a new shiny Mac tend to fill it with all sorts of trendy apps, but forget about the essentials necessary for learning. The following list has a purpose of tackling this particular problem.

1. Manuscripts

This app is a word processor designed specifically for academic papers creation. This means that developers made editing footnotes, annotations, and references unbelievably easy. The features are more or less the same as in standard text editors (that is, more than enough for an average student). The layout, however, is very intuitive. All the key features required to meet style guide requirements are only a click away, so editing and restructuring are fairly painless.

Manuscripts facilitates the process of academic writing and leaves students one less reason to procrastinate.

2. iStudiez Pro

This is an organizer app that was designed specifically for students. Assignments, essay deadlines, exams dates, homework, class schedules, and grades – everything is tracked easily. What is more important for teenagers today, everything is synced across all the devices (iPhone, iPad, or both).

The interface is clean and intuitive, so nothing will distract you from the actual content of the app. Still, it is elegant enough, so working with it is pleasant.

3. MacFly Pro

MacFly Pro is a maintenance app that clears the useless files from the disk. Students are notorious for their untidiness. Their laptops are no exception. They tend to have all kinds of duplicate files littering the disk – essay drafts, academic paper copies, discarded apps, innumerable photos.

This cleaner is a great tool to detect and delete duplicate files on Mac, system junk, large files – everything that can be safely removed to free up some additional space. The last point is particularly useful, as students usually have base Mac models with modest disk capacity, so they run out of space far too quickly.

4. Paste

Paste is clipboard manager. It is useful for students, as they have to deal with various subjects and multiple sources of information on a daily basis. This can be quite overwhelming, so a simple and intuitive organizing tool can help a lot. With Paste, everything they copy is never lost, so it is easy to return to the copied information later. Moreover, the clippings are stored on an array of pinboards that user can organize by theme, file type, time, or any other attribute.

This tool is particularly helpful during revision week and while writing research papers – in fact, whenever students have to process big volumes of material.

5. Giphy Capture

Giphy Capture is an app for creating gifs from videos, pictures, or anything that is happening on the screen. This easy-to-use tool looks like fun, but what’s its value for the education?

The illustrative power of gifs is undisputable. How-tos, guides, tutorials – everything that is easier to show in one moving picture than to describe in thousand words. While you can have both in video format, making a video is a complex and time-consuming process. With gifs, you can bring across the same clear message with minimum effort, plus incorporate instructions as text, which is even more beneficial for visual learners.

This app is great for both teachers and students to show off their projects and share knowledge with the class in an engaging and entertaining way.

6. Evernote

No list like this one can ignore the elephant in the room. This cloud-based note-taking app enjoys wide popularity, so I will discover nothing new by reciting Evernote’s features. However, students tend to ignore it. They prefer playing around with desktop stickers, messages to themselves, and a mess of text files instead of the civilized way of keeping records.

Therefore, I decided to put it on the list anyway. You can save text note, doodles, iSight notes, voice messages, and entire webpages – practically anything in any format. This is your digital “random stuff” box that you can always have on you and that does not rattle as you go.

7. Alfred

Alfred is something in between the succinct Spotlight and the chatty Siri. It can find anything and it understands what you seek so well it’s almost eerie. Simply hit the keyboard shortcut and in the window that appears, start typing in the name of the app you want to run.

Alfred is the fastest way to fish out any file and app from your vast collection without having them on the desktop. This saves a lot of time and effort that students can instead invest in actual learning.

How To + Software & Apps

How to Install Applications on Your Mac

Posted on April 9th, 2018 by Craig Grannell

Installing new apps on your Mac should be straightforward. However, it can sometimes be confusing – installation methods are varied, and you’ll occasionally see scary warnings. This guide, then, will get you acquainted with the basics.

How to install apps from the Mac App Store

Select App Store from the Apple menu and the Mac App Store will open. When signed in with your Apple ID, you can download apps: click Get and then install app for a free app, or buy app for a paid one. You’ll need to confirm payment by entering your Apple ID/password.

Apple reviews every Mac App Store app (and update) prior to release, minimizing the likelihood of problems. In the App Store section of System Preferences, you can optionally automate updates to installed apps, too.

How to install Mac apps downloaded from third-party websites

Apple imposes limitations on developers, meaning some cannot – or choose not to – release their apps on the Mac App Store. Reasoning varies from a lack of deep system access for utilities to app creators wanting the ability to immediately issue updates rather than having them await Mac App Store review.

However, if you decide to download an installer from the Internet, only do so from reputable sources. Ideally, download from developer websites (like Intego’s) and not from app listing websites.

Unless you’ve changed your browser’s settings, downloaded installers will be sent to ~/Downloads, and they come in a variety of forms:

DMG files are mountable disk images. When opened, they appear in the Finder sidebar. DMGs may contain an installer that itself must be opened, after which point you follow on-screen instructions. Most, though, simply contain a copy of the app.

Do not run the app from inside the DMG – instead drag it to /Applications. A folder shortcut may be provided to make this easier. When you’re done, unmount the DMG by clicking the eject icon next to its name in the Finder sidebar, or by Ctrl-clicking inside the DMG’s window and selecting Eject.

ZIP files (and, very occasionally, RARs) are archives that tend to contain just an app. Again, drag the app to your /Applications folder before opening it. In part, this keeps things tidy, but some apps won’t run unless they’re in that folder. (Some will offer to move themselves when opened from the wrong location.)

PKG files are installation packages that contain scripts to direct installation, and files to be installed. These lead you through a multi-step installation process, and tend to be used for apps and utilities that require additional components, system services, and/or files to be placed elsewhere on your computer. (This is automated, note – you essentially click a few times to allow the PKG to do its thing.)

Post-installation, you can trash DMGs, ZIPs and PKGs.

How to install Mac apps from third-party app stores

There are some third-party equivalents to the Mac App Store. They’re typically specialized in nature, and comprise a core app that when launched enables you to manage which products from the service you install on your Mac. Games store Steam is the most popular. It assumes you’ll launch purchased games from within its app rather than /Applications, although it is possible to create desktop shortcuts you can subsequently move.

A more Mac-like example of a third-party app store is Setapp. It’s sort of like a curated Netflix for apps – for a monthly fee, you get access to dozens of hand-picked apps. Installed apps are placed within /Applications/Setapp. Don’t manually mess about with these – use Setapp’s interface for subsequent management.

Clear warnings when installing apps

When installing and launching apps, your Mac may display security warnings. For example, when you download an app from the Internet, your Mac will ask for confirmation before you run it the first time. (This assumes that in the Security & Privacy pane of System Preferences you allow apps downloaded from identified developers. That is the default setting; it can be adjusted by clicking the lock, entering your admin password, and selecting the relevant radio button.)

In the current version of macOS, an older setting that once existed in System Preferences is absent: the option to run apps from unidentified developers. This is to protect your Mac from apps by creators not registered with Apple. However, such apps aren’t necessarily dangerous. Older ones may have been released prior to the registration program’s existence, and some independent developers may simply not want to sign up.

You can override your Mac’s security settings by Control-clicking the relevant app in Finder and selecting Open. You’ll be asked to confirm the action before the app launches. Again, exercise caution when opening such apps; and if in doubt, backup your system prior to doing so.

About Craig Grannell