We’ve all wanted to type that word that’s on the tip of our tongue but have difficulty in spelling it when typing it into the computer. Or when the spell check fails completely at your attempts on a word. So how can your Mac be of any help? Well, in addition to a fully featured dictionary and thesaurus built in; it can also Auto-Complete your words as you type.
The magic combination? Option-Escape or SHIFT-F5
Simply type the first couple of letters of word and press the magic keys; and up will pop a scrollable list of words which match those first letters. Try it!
This delightful feature should work in most Mac OS X applications (i.e. Cocoa based) but you may encounter the odd one or two that don’t. Most notably Microsoft Word.
Poland celebrates 90 years of independence
Roman Marszalek, Nov 10 2008
I was down at Westminster Cathedral on Saturday celebrating Polish Independence Day (11th November 1918) with my family, including my grandfather, Thomas Marszalek, who was interviewed by the BBC News website.
Poland did not exist for 123 years from 1795 after the third partitioning split the country between Russia, Prussia and Austria. What is remarkable is that even though it was illegal to speak the language, Polish and the Polish culture both survived during this time.
Five year anniversary
Roman Marszalek, Nov 01 2008
We our now entering our sixth year as a limited company and would like to extend a big thank you to all our clients for their support and custom!
Doctor Logic was founded on the 29th of October 2003 and we are proud to say that we are still working with most of the clients from my two years as a sole trader previous to this.
Mobile Me Update
Michael Jin, Oct 31 2008
Apple has made some under-the-hood changes and updates to their subscription based MobileMe service. There is no need for any user intervention, as all the updates are done on Apple’s server side.
Hopefully, we will see some improvements in the reliability and robustness of the service; which, as so far, in my experience has been pretty faultless to date.
For a detailed list of changes, consult Apple’s release notes.
Oh, and Happy Halloween!
New MacBooks - DisplayPort
Michael Jin, Oct 28 2008
As you may know, the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros are totally awesome: the new shell sculpted out of a solid block of aluminium is aesthetically gorgeous and very sturdy. The glass trackpad sounds a little gimmicky, but again, it’s very easy to use and there’s hardly any ‘adjustment’ period when using it.
The new MacBooks also introduced to us a new type of display adapter; formerly, we’ve all used VGA or DVI, but this time, Apple have adopted the new industry-standard of video output; “DisplayPort” and it’s little brother “Mini DisplayPort”.
In short, this new standard (and it’s not only Apple who are starting to adopt this) offers high definition video output, with sound and data in a plug that has no pins to get bent or screws to mess around with.
You can get finer control of your Mac’s volume by pressing SHIFT-OPTION-VOLUME UP/DOWN. This provides an extra 4 levels per ‘notch’, allowing you to finally have sounds coming out of your Mac to be ‘just right’.
In addition, you can temporarily disable the changing volume sound simply by holding SHIFT down whilst you change the volume. Very useful when you’re trying to change the volume in the middle of a presentation or movie.
New MacBooks, MacBook Pros & Display
Roman Marszalek, Oct 15 2008
Yesterday, Apple released it’s next generation MacBooks and MacBook Pros, as well as a LED-backlit 24” display with build in MagSafe power for laptops.
If you’re interested in buying one, please ask us for a quote as we can save you about 5% on the MacBooks and 7% on the MacBook Pros and Displays.
OpenOffice 3.0 is out
Roman Marszalek, Oct 14 2008
If you’re looking for a free (i.e. no cost) alternative to Microsoft Office 2008 then you’re in luck. OpenOffice 3 was released yesterday. Unlike it’s predecessor, you no longer need to run it with X11, as it’s now 100% native.
It allows you to create Word Processing, Spreadsheet, Presentation, Drawing, Database and Formula documents and it’s compatible with Microsofts’s latest Office 2007 (PC) and Office 2008 (Mac) document formats although it can’t write to the new XML formats (.docx, .xlsx etc.) but can open them.
NeoOffice based on OpenOffice will begin it’s early access program for version 3.0 on the 15th of November. NeoOffice adds the following to OpenOffice: