The Mind of Dr. Mac

As I’ve mentioned before I’m an inveterate reader. I read tons of web pages, books, magazines, newsletters, and almost anything else that has writing on it including Read Me files and product documentation. One of the most useful things I read is TidBITS: Mac news for the rest of us.

TidBITS is available in many forms, all advertiser supported and available at no charge (though donations are gratefully accepted). I subscribe to the e-mail newsletter version and read it from cover to cover (top to bottom?) every week. They also offer information on their Web site and via podcast, RSS, and Twitter.

TidBITS has been around forever (well, since 1990) and is staffed by some of the most knowledgeable writers I know including founders Adam and Tonya Engst, Jeff Carlson, Glenn Fleishman, Rich Mogull, Matt Neuburg, and more. I receive a lot of press releases from vendors each day and let me tell you a little secret … many of the so-called “news” sites copy and paste the contents of said press releases and post them verbatim. But not TidBITS — every TidBITS article is original, thoughtful (or thought-provoking), and well-researched. It is (and always has been) one of my favorite information resources for in-depth coverage of Apple and Mac topics. So check it out — chances are it’ll become one of your favorites, too.

Click here for more info: TidBITS: Mac news for the rest of us.

And hey — if you find TidBITS as useful as I do, why not make a little donation?

This is very cool . . . Alltop just introduced a way for you to build your own custom news page with only info from the sites you like best! It’s called My Alltop and mine looks like this:

Three more things about My Alltop pages are very cool:

1. It’s free.
2. When you hover your cursor over any headline you see a summary of that article immediately.
3. You can share your custom news page with your friends.

If you want to check out mine, click here: My Alltop: LeVitus

And if you want to create your own, click here: My Alltop: Create an Account

When I offer a suggestion or solution to other Mac users, I’m often asked, “How do you learn these things?” Or “Where did you learn that?” There is no single answer. I am an inveterate researcher with an unquenchable curiosity. Every day I read literally dozens of Web sites, newsletters, news groups, forums, tweets, blogs, and RSS feeds. And, of course, I use Google extensively to research specific issues or problems.

I depend on far too many resources to tackle them all at once in a single post, so think of this as the first in a series…

How I Learn Mac and iPhone Stuff: Part I

When I need specific information about a product or problem I almost always start with a Google Web search. But while the little Google search field in the address bar of most browsers is handy, you might not always want start there. Rather, you might want to try Google’s Advanced Search.

The easiest way to get acquainted with this feature is to click the Advanced Search link on Google’s main page as shown here:

This will replace the single search field shown above with the multi-field Advanced Search form shown below:

The form should be pretty much self-explanatory, but if you want some help click the Advanced Search Tips link in the upper right corner as indicated above.

In addition to helping you understand the Advanced Search form, these tips show you how to construct an advanced search you can initiate right from your browser’s toolbar, so you don’t even have to bother with the Advanced Search form.

For example, to learn more about a jungle cat you might type this:

[ jaguar -cars -football -OS ]

into your browser’s Google search field. Google interprets that as, “search for pages with the word jaguar but exclude pages with cars, football, or OS on them.”

So, the next time you search the Web, try an Advanced Search. In many cases it will provide better and/or more relevant results, and save you both time and effort.

I’ll have more great learning resources for you in the near future, so check back here soon.