WebDAV (World Wide Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning) is a quick and easy tool for managing your files in UDrive and on SPARK. On a Mac, you can mount your UDrive or your SPARK File Manager directly onto your desktop, allowing you to easily drag & drop (or copy & paste) files between your computer and your UDrive or SPARK course. Here’s a quick tutorial on how it works:
Make the corners of your Mac screen work for you! Customize your Mac’s “Hot Corners” to allow you to quickly engage useful desktop commands by moving the cursor into the corners of your computer screen.
These moves parallel some of the function commands discussed in our post, Mac Tips: Driving Around the Desktop. While function commands are great when you are typing, Hot Corners really shine when you are browsing on the Internet or working mostly with your mouse. Hot Corners are particularly helpful if you want to use cool Mac functions like Exposé and Dashboard but want to reserve your function keys for other uses (volume, screen controls, etc.).
Setting Up Hot Corners
You will have several options for customization, including:
All Windows: lets you see all open windows
Application Windows: lets you see all windows in the active application
Desktop: clears your screen of all windows so you can see your desktop
Dashboard: brings up the Dashboard
This post is part of a series of “Mac Tips” about the latest Mac operating system (Mac OS X). You can find these tips and a lot more in the category “Technology Survival Guide.“
Taking pictures of your desktop is as easy as pressing Command, Shift, 3. In your Mac, you can take a picture of your entire desktop or just a selection. This is useful if you would like to provide illustrated instructions for your students or for class presentations.
All images are saved automatically to the desktop. If you prefer to save them to clipboard for pasting, hold down the control key while you take the image.
If you sometimes feel that your desktop is too cluttered, or if you wish you had another computer screen to separate work from play, Mac’s “Spaces” feature delivers–without spending a dime on a second monitor. The Spaces feature allows you to shuttle between as few as 2 and as many as 16 desktops screens all on the same computer.
To enable Spaces:
Once you have enabled Spaces, there are a few quick keyboard commands to help you navigate (laptop users may need to press the Fn function key to use some of these commands):
Check out the Apple website for more information.
The latest Mac operating system (Mac OS X) comes with a few quick tricks that will streamline your computing experience. We’ll deliver a few of these tricks in a series of posts called “Mac Tips.” You can always find these tips and a lot more under the “Technology Survival Guide” Category. They’re also quite cool: many of our “Mac Tips and Tricks” workshop participants couldn’t help oohing and ahhing at their discoveries.
In “Driving around the Desktop,” you’ll learn how to maneuver around a cluttered desktop with ease by using Exposé, a feature of Mac OS X. The Exposé commands allow you to quickly shuttle between multiple applications and windows, simultaneously see every open window, and clear your desktop in an instant. Here’s how:
Note: Laptop users may need to press the Fn (Function) key to press some of the keys listed above.
For more information, visit Apple’s support page on Exposé.