Back to School – Notepad and Audio Recorder for Mac

 Free or inexpensive software can make taking notes during class lectures more effective.  They accomplish this by recording the lecture as you take notes.  Later, by placing your cursor anywhere in the document, you can play the audio recorded at the time that note was taken.   

These programs make it possible to add notes that were missed during a fast moving lecture and remove the pressure of constant note taking when you just want to focus on what's being said.  When reviewing your lecture notes, if something isn't clear, you can play the audio from that point in the lecture.

 Microsoft Office Mac Home & Student  $99 3 license Family Pack Amazon
Audionote for Mac – $2.99  –  5.99 on Mac App Store
Audionote for Windows $19.95 by Luminant
Pear Note – all in one Mac Audio & Notes program $39.99 Mac App Store

Word 2007 for Windows has the recording feature although it must be added to the Quick Access Menu.  Word 2010 for Windows does not have the recording feature.

If you have Microsoft Office for Mac you will find this feature by opening a new or existing document and selecting the NOTEBOOK view.

 

then select the AUDIO tab to set up recording

 

 

Know of others? – leave a comment

 

Image of Mac Mail icon

How To Transfer Mac Mail Junk Training Data to another Mac

Back Up or Copy Your Mac OS X Mail Junk Mail Training Data

 

Like most modern email clients, Mac Mail includes a junk mail filter that can be trained for more accurate filtering.  By clicking on a JUNK or NOT JUNK button the system "learns" what emails to move to your Junk folder, and which ones are legitimate.  This is sometimes referred to as separating the SPAM from the HAM.

 

Using an IMAP mail server will keep your email synchronized on multiple computers – delete an email on one computer and it will be deleted from the other computer(s).  However IMAP does not do the same for the junk training data.  To avoid the hassle of retraining each new mail client and to minimize the chance that real email will be missed by being placed in your Junk folder and missed, you can manually move the training data from one Mac mail client to another.

 

To create a backup of your Mac OS X Mail junk mail training data or move it to a new computer:

  • Using Finder, navigate to Username/Library/Mail/V2/MailData
  • Find the file LSMap2
  • If moving the file to another Mac, rename the LSMap2 file on the new computer to LSMap2.old
  • Copy the LSMMap2 file either to a back up location or the new Mac.

Open Mail and test. 

Defending Privacy at the U.S. Border: A Guide for Travelers Carrying Digital Devices

 

"Our lives are on our laptops – family photos, medical documents, banking information, details about what websites we visit, and so much more. Thanks to protections enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, the government generally can’t snoop through your laptop for no reason. But those privacy protections don’t safeguard travelers at the U.S. border, where the U.S. government can take an electronic device, search through all the files, and keep it for a while for further scrutiny – without any suspicion of wrongdoing whatsoever."

The EFF has an excellent article by Seth Schoen, Marcia Hofmannand Rowan Reynolds online here or you can download the PDF.

 

Restore Lost Buetooth Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Loepard

A friend lost their Apple bluetooth keyboard and Logitech bluetooth mouse.  Bluetooth controls were grey – computer appeared to not see the bluetooth hardware.  They recently updated from 10.5.8 to 10.6.

Solutions was:

MacBook (13 inch, Late 2008), MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2008), and MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2008)

If the computer is on, turn it off.
Disconnect the AC adapter and remove the computer's battery. ( also disconnect all other cables)
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds and then release the button.
Reconnect the battery and AC Adapter.
Press the power button to restart the computer

This resets the "SMC" see article  http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411