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> > By Adam Dachis > Top 10 Secret Features in Mac OS X Lion > > Lion's out and there's a lot of new stuff to explore. Apple tells you about > most of it on their web site, but there are still some secret features you'll > want to know about. Here's a look at our top 10 favorites. > > > > 10. Add New, High-Quality Text-to-Speech Voices > > Over the years, Apple's been working incrementally to improve the quality of > the text-to-speech voices offered with its operating system. For awhile we > just had Alex, the only somewhat natural-sounding computer voice in the > collection. While that hasn't changed much, as far as the defaults go, you > can add a bunch of new voices directly from OS X's VoiceOver Utility (in Hard > Drive -> Applications -> Utilities). Just click the Speech pane and then > select "Customize" from the voice selection menu. This will let you choose > from all the options—including a lot of the fun novelty voices you might have > thought went missing. > > > > 9. Look Up a Word in the Dictionary with Two Taps > > Lion comes with a lot of new multitouch gestures, and hidden in the new set > is the ability to look up a word with two taps. All you have to do is place > your cursor over a word you want to look up, then tap the word twice with > three fingers. This will highlight it in yellow and show you a heads up > display with the word's definition. Of course, you'll need to turn this on in > System Preferences -> Trackpad -> Point & Click first. > > > > 8. Create Search Tokens When Searching for Files > > You'll find this functionality throughout applications in Lion, but it's > especially useful when looking for files in the Finder. Basically, when > searching you type in something like "Text" and are given some options in a > drop-down menu. You might be looking for a file with "Text" in the file name > or just a file that is made up of text. You can choose which one from this > menu and it'll create a search token. Once a token is created, you'll start > to get results. You can keep creating more and more tokens this way to refine > your search, however, making it really easy to quickly locate the file (or > files) you're looking for. > > > > 7. Group a Bunch of Items into a Folder > > The Finder has a handy new trick hidden in the contextual menu, and that's > the ability to select a bunch of files, right- or control-click them, and > choose "New folder from X items." What this does is groups all the files > together and throws them in a new folder. Sure you could just make a new > folder and drag them all in, but this saves you a step. Want to do this with > a keyboard shortcut? Just press Command+Control+N. > > > > 6. Add an Event to iCal by Typing a Phrase > > Known as "Quick Add", iCal now lets you just type a human-readable phrase to > add a new item to your calendar. To do this, just click the + button in iCal > and choose a calendar. You'll get a little pop up that'll let you enter > whatever you want. Type something like "Movie this Friday at 7pm" and iCal > will translate it into a new event. > > Bonus iCal feature: Enter year view and you'll see a heat map over the > calendar. The warmer the color, the more you have going on that day. > > > > 5. Share the Screen of an Inactive User > > Screen sharing is great when you want to take control of whatever's currently > on the screen, but what happens when someone's logged in to another account > and you want to access yours remotely? Screen sharing now lets you share the > screen of any user, even when their account is running in the background. > > Bonus Screen Sharing feature: If you want to allow people to share your > screen but you don't want to create a new account for them, you can just add > their Apple ID as an authorized user in the Screen Sharing section of the > Sharing pane in System Preferences. > > > > 4. Manage Privacy Settings for Any App > > Lion now includes some privacy settings, letting you control which apps are > allowed to use your location and collect usage data. To access it, just go to > the top row in System Preferences and select Security & Privacy. From there, > click the Privacy tab and you can make any changes you want. > > > > 3. Automatically Restart When the Computer Freezes > > Sometimes your computer freezes only to become unfrozen seconds later. Other > times you stare at the screen for several minutes, wondering if that's going > to happen, and then eventually restart when you're convinced you're wasting > your time. With resuming capabilities it isn't so awful if a freeze does take > place and requires a restart, but you no longer have to decide in Lion. > HIdden away in the Energy Saver pane in System Preferences is a little > checkbox called "Restart automatically if the computer freezes." Check it and > you won't ever have to worry about it again. > > > > 2. Fully Migrate from Windows to Mac OS X Automatically > > If you're moving from a Windows PC to a Mac, Lion can help ease that > transition by migrating all your files to the proper places in OS X. This > means everything from documents to mail accounts in Outlook to even your > photos in Picasa (not sure why they picked Picasa, but they did). The > transfer happens over the network, either wirelessly or wired—totally up to > you. You need to first download a copy of Migration Assistant for Windows and > then open the copy that's already on your Mac (Hard Drive -> Utilities -> > Migration Assistant). From there you can select the information you want to > transfer and let the fun begin. It'll probably take awhile, but when it > finishes your Mac will now have the same data as your old Windows machine. > > > > 1. Easily Add a Signature to a PDF Document in Preview > > Preview has a lot of neat new features, but one of the best is its ability to > digitally sign a document. You might think this happens with your finger and > trackpad, but you'd be wrong—that wouldn't include everybody. Instead, you > sign a piece of paper and hold it up to your iSight/Facetime camera while > Preview snaps a photo. It'll then detect the signature and allow you to add > it to your document. To do this, just open the PDF document you want to sign, > click "Annotate" in the toolbar (if the annotations bar isn't already > showing), and then click the Signature drop-down menu. That will display two > options. The first will let you take a photo of your signature with your > Mac's built-in camera and the second will allow you to manage the signatures > you've already saved using this process. Pretty awesome. > > You can follow Adam Dachis, the author of this post, on Twitter and Facebook. > Twitter's the best way to contact him, too. > > > Share this: > > > > July 23rd, 2011 Top Stories > Add New, Custom Functionality to Your Computer This Weekend > This Week's Most Popular Posts: July 16-22, 2011 > Panamp Is a Sleek, Playlist-Based Music Player for iPhone > How Do I Upgrade My Hackintosh to Mac OS X Lion? > A Bill-by-Bill Guide to Saving Money on Your Monthly Expenses > More Stories on Lifehacker » > d...@theroyhouse.com: Change your e-mail address | Unsubscribe > Gawker Media, 210 Elizabeth Street, Floor 4, New York, NY 10012 > Terms of use | Mailing List Policy > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. 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